Embracing the Future
by xiaoj
Summary: (AU) Sequel to 'Visitors from the Future', KanZe pairing. Story sets 3 years after future trio's departure from the time-line, what is going to happen to our favorite couple of all times? Read to find out! New readers, kindly read previous fic for understanding. WIP.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Embracing the Future

Genre: General/Romance/Friendship

Rating: T

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Vampire Knight. Copyright belongs to Hino Matsuri, I only uses the characters for the story. I do, however own the Fujiwara Clan and its' related subordinates family.

Pairing: Kaname/Zero; mild Shiki/Rima; Ichijo/Risa(OC); Ichiru/Maria.

Summary: (AU) Sequel to 'Visitors from the Future', sets 6 months after last chapter of 'VFTF'. Need I say more? Wants to find out, stay tuned! WIP

Author's Notes: Yay! The long awaited sequel to 'Visitors from the Future', the trio are no longer in here but my Fujiwara Clan is still here: P Story will start 3 years after the trio leave…so let's see what our dear Kaname and Zero are up to now, shall we?

**Quick Recap of the Original Characters featured in the story**:

Fujiwara Yumi – Pureblood Leader of the Fujiwara Clan. Weapon is her own hair.

Fujiwara Yuka – Pureblood daughter of Yumi, Sister of Sayaka. Master to ex-human, Sawashiro Makoto and she have the ability to communicate with her future self.

Fujiwara Sayaka – Pureblood daughter of Yumi, younger sister of Yuka. Mainly in charge of household matters, ability and weapons unknown as of current.

Risa Miyazaki – Common Class Vampire of Miyazaki Clan, mother was Fujiwara Ami (deceased). Minor member of the Fujiwara Clan and is the grand-daughter to Fujiwara Hayate (elder from the Clan). Zero's cousin twice or thrice removed from the branch, loyal to Zero first, then Kaname. Have the ability to rule the Common Class Levels within the Night-Class. Weapon unknown, skilled in Kendo field… currently assisting Ichijo Takuma as his private assistant/secretary.

Fujiwara Misaki – Hunter's Lineage, but not a hunter. Zero's Cousin and the legal advisor to Fujiwara Corporation. Head person in charge of the M&M Law & Legislative Agency.

Fujiwara Satoshi – Zero's maternal Uncle. Hunter and the owner of Fujiwara Kendo Doujo.

Fujiwara Satomi – Hunter in training, cousin to Zero and Ichiru. Elder sister to Akemi, daughter to Satoshi.

Fujiwara Akemi – Sister of Satomi, cousin to Zero and Ichiru. Young and rising celebrity in media industry; and the official spokesperson for products manufactured by family business' company. Personal bodyguard is the brother of Wakaba Sayori.

Wakaba Hiroshi – guard to Fujiwara Akemi, Sayori's brother.

Mishima Yuuko – mother to Sayori, and assistant to Yumi.

Sawashiro Makoto – ex-human vampire, servant to Yuka.

Matsushita Ayano – Guard and Assistant to Ichiru; fiancée of Hiroshi Wakaba.

Kishimoto Hideo – big time womanizer and heir to Kishimoto Incorporation. Dealing with microchips and computers/electronics devices.

Junichi Miyazaki – Father to Risa Miyazaki, Common Class Vampire.

Tachibana Kenjiro – New transfer student to Night-Class from Fujiwara Gakuen, used to be Yuka's Right-hand man. Now allocated to Zero to assist him in the operations of Fujiwara Electronics…

Sakaki Miyako – New transfer student to Night-Class from Fujiwara Gakuen, used to be Yuka's subordinate. Now allocated to Zero to assist him in the operations of Fujiwara Electronics...

Chapter 1 – A New Beginning

Yuuki Kuran massaged the sides of her temples wearily, this was the third time in this week that she had to remove the memories of another day-class students who had the misfortune of witnessing a fellow student from the night-class with lengthen fangs ready to suck the blood of another willing night class student.

Although, the rules and regulations sets in place for the vampires on campus to abide has been tweaked a little and the secret behind the night-class could be revealed to any day-class students who they deemed suitable… it still does not means that THEY could go around sucking the blood out from one another's neck in PUBLIC. Granted, they did not do it in the broad day-light but still…aren't they aware of the possibility of fan-girls sneaking out after curfew to catch a glimpse of their beloved night-class seniors?!

It had been bad enough for them to be caught in the blood-sucking activities twice by the school councilors before, but at least they know their identities of being vampires and would simply turn them in to either Chairman Cross or herself to handle. If there is anything Yuuki was glad about the new school rules in place was that she needs not wipe off any of the prefects' memories, because they have already been informed of the vampires' nature and ways of living.

At the most, Yuuki would received dozens of warnings issued from the prefects pertaining to her 'flock' of people who had disregard the school rules… and she had been able to compromise with the prefects on duty about not letting the news leaked to the Chairman. Today's incident though would not be that easily brushed aside as before, because it involved innocent day-class girls who just happened to be a new intake this year. That poor girl had a nasty shock of her life finding things out in this dreadful manner, and in order to prevent the said girl from going into a state of hyperventilation…Yuuki had to remove the memories from the girl as an emergency act.

'_Honestly, these newcomers should really learn to curb their blood thirst by using blood tablets instead__ of biting someone for it._' Yuuki thought inwardly to herself.

"Aidou-sempai, kindly gets me some aspirins. Will you?" Yuuki requested, as she slumped herself down in her chair heavily.

"There you go, Yuuki-sama." Aidou Hanabusa handed the pills over with a glass of water, obediently.

It has been a total of three years since the trio departed from their time-line, and recently Kaname and Zero had both left Cross Academy on a permanent basis. With their departure, they brought along the Vice-President of Night-Class – Ichijo Takuma, Risa Miyazaki and Seiren – the ever loyal guard to Kaname Kuran.

The night-class had undergone a change and shift in authority with the departure of the Kuran Prince, the control of the vampires residing on campus now lies completely in the hands of Yuuki Kuran. Apparently, the pureblood heir of the Kuran Clan had wanted to spend his time and energy on getting the business up into shape and have decided to leave the co-existence work in his sister's hands.

Zero Kiryuu, on the other hand, left the campus simply because he had already graduated from the day-class and would served no point to continue residing on campus. Besides, with the transfers from Fujiwara Gakuen…there was no need for him to stay on behind. Since, among the transfer students included children from hunter's side – too.

"Aidou-sempai, how did Kaname-nii keep them under control anyway?" Yuuki asked frowning as she recalled the acts of those new enrolls under the night-class scheme.

"…Kaname-sama rules us with his iron fist." Aidou commented, recalling the number of times he was slapped for getting too close to Yuuki for their pureblood leader's liking.

"I mean other than the slapping and aura flaring thing, I obviously cannot used the slapping method to control them." Yuuki threw the newly promoted Vice-President of the night-class a look of annoyance.

"Yuuki-sama, you are too soft in your approach. Either way, Chairman Cross has wanted to speak to you since hours ago. We managed to hold him back claiming that you had a long day, and once you have free time on your hands…you would go and visit him." Aidou Hanabusa told the chocolate-haired princess of the Kuran Clan, with respect.

"Fine, I'll go and see what he wants from me now. Speaking of which, do let me know if Zero called back." Yuuki instructed, before leaving the lounge for the front door of the Moon Dormitory.

"I'm back, Kaname… are you in?" Zero Kiryuu called into the apartment, as he entered the penthouse unit situated in the heart of the bustling city of Tokyo. The apartment was part of his inheritance received from his mother three years ago when he signed the legal papers. He was currently residing in the apartment with his lover of three years, the pureblood heir of the Kuran Clan following their recent departure from the Cross Academy.

"In here, my dear." The pureblood responded, while Zero arched his brows up in wonders when he pin-point the voice to be coming from the kitchen area.

"Pray tell, what on earth are you doing in the kitchen?" Zero started as he ventured towards Kaname's location, inwardly hoping that the former was not going to try his hands on whipping them dinner or something. Everything in the kitchen was newly acquired and he had no qualms of revisiting the kitchen utensils stores to replace anything, again.

Just last week, Kaname had tried to microwave some chilled macaroni that they had in the fridge for some supper and the attempt had ended up in a disaster of having the microwave oven exploding on them. Reason being, Kaname had not the insight to remove the metal fork from the dish before putting it into the oven to reheat. Anyone with common sense would knows that metal does not reacts well with microwave oven, but apparently the common sense does not applies to Kaname Kuran.

Kaname sighed as he took in his lover's look of exasperation, before responding. "Zero, relaxed… I am just getting a drink of water from the fridge. After last week's fiasco, I highly doubted I would dare to touch any of those kitchen appliances of yours again."

"…Kaname, I am not trying to imply anything of that sort. All I'm saying is that you need to learn the proper way of handling them before you do anything with it." Zero said as he combed his hand through his hair uneasily.

"I know…come on, let's get out from here. How's your day in the office, anyway?" Kaname asked, steering the topic of conversation away from the kitchen issue. He decided that he was not ever going to volunteer himself for any task that required cooking in future.

"Nothing much to say about that, the meeting agenda are the usual things to address and decide upon. It was quite a bore, actually…How about you?" Zero asked, glad to have the change of conversation topic too.

"It's coming along well enough, I supposed. The cousin of your brother's assistant was quite good at her job, it seems. It is amazing of how efficient she was with the task of segregating out the financial amount used by Ichijo Asato from the Kuran's accounts to fund projects under his name. The accounts on the Kuran's side are more or less straightened out by now. I figured Takuma had it worst, his grandfather's business weren't exactly clear it seems." Kaname said, as the duos made their way into the living room of the apartment unit.

"Yes, I figured from that look of his whenever he was presented with the financial reports of Ichijo Enterprise that he would simply wish for the report to be burnt because it gave him a swelling head just by looking over it." Zero smirked; the blond was always so happy-go-lucky that he found it incredibly amusing when the blond was gloomy.

"Indeed… so do you have anything planned for the evening?" Kaname Kuran asked, nuzzling his lover's neck in the process of speaking.

"No…not that I could remember. Why…?" Zero asked, sighing in content as he relaxed and leaned in closer to his lover's body for warmth and comfort.

"Yuuki called earlier on, says she have something to ask you about the Artemis rod. She asked for you to call her back as soon as you have time on your hand." Kaname replied, passing along the message to his lover as per his beloved sister's request.

"I see…Well, I'll just call her back in a while. I'm taking the showers first." Zero mused, inwardly wondering what else is there about the Artemis rod which Yuuki still had no idea about. That weapon has been with Yuuki for so long that Zero thought that girl had figured out everything about it now.

Kaname Kuran sighed when he felt his lover leaving his side for the shower; it seems to be ages since they slept together or involved in any of their 'exercise'. Their work had been taking up a little too much of their time together, with his current heavy involvement with straightening out Kuran Incorporation and Zero with his recent frequent hunting assignments received. The hunting assignments were of course requests from the veteran hunter, Yagari Touga, who had recently 'renewed' his acquaintance with Zero. Although, Kaname had a nagging suspicion in mind that the veteran hunter was actually sending his silver-haired lover off for frequent hunting trips so as to keep them apart…

'_Well…if I am lucky, and that master of his refrained from calling him up in the middle of the night seeking assistance I could perhaps get some…tonight._' Kaname thought.

It was 7pm in the evening, but a certain green eyed blond vampire was still cooped up in his office within Ichijo Enterprise. He was currently working and studying at the same time, under the On-Job Training (OJT) scheme. This was apparently Zero's suggestion to get him to pick up the skills of managing a company in the shortest time possible. It seems like the typical studying on campus failed to work on him in the way it actually should, and Zero decided to opt for the alternative. Granted, the learning process is slower in this method but it proved to be more efficient on him.

One and a half year ago when Risa brought up the issue that the 'old coots' supporting his grand-father's ideals should be replaced on a major scale, and he had then decided to go ahead with the restructuring process of Ichijo Enterprise. Zero had assisted him in screening through the employees profile of staffs employed in Ichijo Enterprise and provide him with suggestions on the candidates to promote and demote, to keep or to retrench. Of course, what Zero provided him with are just opinions and whether or not he choose to do as the former says relied on his own judgment.

Ichijo Takuma being a newbie in business simply obliged Zero's opinions to keep the majority of the human employees and do away with most of the vampires in service. Especially those old coots that work together with his grand-father in dabbling in shady areas of the business and these shady areas of the business are actually dealings that crossed the line of the country's law. Among them included the trafficking of controlled drugs into the country, once discovered would be punishable by sentencing to ten or more years in jail.

No wonder they protested so vehemently when he bring in outside experts to sort out the company's books of accounts…and then the cops sets in to work. Knowing that normal cops would not have work on these vampires workers, Zero had pulled in some strings from the Fujiwara's network of connections and had sends in hunters and cops with specializing in dealing with the vampires in to hold them custody. The news made headlines of the following day's newspaper, and the reputable name of Ichijo Enterprise was then tarnished significantly by the press.

Following which, Zero had told Risa to assist him in the crisis PR management by putting forth a team to specially handle the situation. This was done effectively and efficiently, and after a whole six months of battling. The situation was finally under control, and now Ichijo Enterprise has officially shrunk in size. In fact, Ichijo Takuma had taken Zero's suggestion to heart by changing the company's name and expertise areas of business dealings to show the fact that the once prominent Ichijo Enterprise is no more.

The new name Takuma had decided for his family business is now 'Ichijo Holdings Private Limited', he kept a sector of the business in technological field and shifted the rest into publication industry. Ichijo Holdings now work in co-relation with the Fujiwara Electronics to produce mobile gadgets and computers hardware, and also Takuma had set up a printing company to work in collaboration with the agencies of local manga and stories writers to publish their works. Currently, he only works with the smaller agencies like the Shogakukan or the Hakusensha – mostly publishing works catering to young readers and the ladies' readers. Eventually, he hoped to clinch deals from the other agencies such as the infamous Kodansha and Shueisha.

"Ichijo-san, are you quite done with your day-dream yet?" The sound of Risa Miyazaki, his now personal assistant cum secretary's voice jolted him out from his thoughts and back into reality realm.

Looking up sheepishly, he was greeted by the sight of the auburn-haired vampire glaring at him with unbidden annoyance apparent on her features.

"Oops, sorry Risa-chan…I didn't mean to zone out on you. So what was it that you are saying?" Ichijo Takuma asked, focusing his attention back onto the file back on the table in front of him.

"If you had been listening in carefully and not zoning out on me, you should know that the accounts and debts previously owed to Kuran Incorporation would be successfully paid off by the end of this quarter." Risa stated flatly and emotionlessly.

"Ah… that's a good thing, right?" Ichijo Takuma commented, finally heaving a sigh of relief after six months of stress piling atop of him.

It amazes him how his grand-father's had kept the business going with that much fishy transactions going along, and the liquid assets of the company was exceptionally low. Looks like his grandfather has been tapping into the accounts of Kuran Incorporation for funding over the past ten over years it would seems to be. Thinking back on the books of accounts being shown to him by one Matsushita Ayano's cousin, it would give him a very big headache.

In order to settle the disputes over the accounts with Kuran Incorporation, he actually had to sell out some of the business that was growing and had good prospect to other small medium enterprise out there in order to get in sufficient cash to solve the tight cash-flow problem encountered once he put a stop to all activities of tapping into the Kuran's accounts for funding activity.

With the selling off of the business, they were faced with an overwhelming number of staffs working in the company. That was the start of a mass retrenchment act, and the vampires were the first to go due to their high-paying salary. Of course, he had met up with each and every one of them in private first seeking for their cooperation in agreeing to a pay-cut policy. Those who agrees, he kept them on the list while those who refused to budge was asked to leave in a polite manner after paying them a significant amount as compensation.

Next came the crisis PR management after doing away with those old coots of the company, and followed by the legal proceeding of the change in company's name and the members of the board of directors. Now on the legal papers, it stated the director of Ichijo Holdings Private Limited as himself, the company secretary as Risa, and the accountant for the company as Iwasaki Mayumi – a fellow colleague of Matsushita Ayano's cousin who is now solely working on accounts of the Kuran's Incorporation.

But even with the restructuring work done to the company, he still have debts owed to Kuran's Incorporation that has yet to be paid off. He was genuinely grateful that Kaname had provide him with some leeway by not taking the whole issue up to the courts, and was willing to settle it privately among themselves. Three whole years, it took him three years to repay off whatever amount his grandfather had taken to use from the Kuran's accounts without seeking permission in advance. To pay Kaname's company off, and to fund the restructuring work done on the company… Ichijo Takuma had even taken to mortgage the ancestral home of the Ichijo Clan.

Of course, his decision back then was met by angry protests of the family servants' but seeing as he was the sole heir to Ichijo Clan. No matter how angry they are, no one could have objected to his decision made. To get them off his back, Ichijo Takuma had even dismissed the majority of the family's servant keeping only the driver and the assistant butler who he now named as the head butler in another estate of his family.

The main ancestral house held too many memories of his grand-father that he felt suffocated by staying within for just a matter of mere minutes, he knew his grandfather would rolled in his grave if he knew. The thing is Takuma simply just could not be bothered anymore, after all, he did killed his own grandfather and vampires when died has no need for a grave as they merely disappeared and turned into dust within a matters of seconds. So after dismissing the servants and putting up the house for mortgage…Takuma had shifted himself into a rented condominium unit near his company's address.

The reason why he choose to rent the unit and not simply purchased it was due to the fact that the housing rates are horribly high at this point of time, and between the need to keep his company's assets as liquid as possible… he gathered he should just make do with a rented apartment for now. It was bad enough for him to mortgage off one of his ancestral homes, if he does away with another – he would be 'in' for it.

Pertaining to the reason why he did not want to shift into his other family's estate was quite simple actually. It had something to do with his laziness, and also his love for being in a crowd. All the Ichijo family estates are situated way too far out in the outskirt of the community, quite an inconvenience for him when he needs to be going in to his company on daily basis. Unlike Kaname who could simply bunk in with Zero Kiryuu, who just happened to own housing in the city areas due to the Fujiwara's uniqueness… he had no such luck. Besides, he would not want to intrude on his friend's privacy and personal life too much lest it risk the wrath of the former.

Eventually, he settled for renting a unit in the same block of condominium building which the penthouse apartment of Zero Kiryuu was situated.

Kaname and Zero were just about to settle down for their dinner, when the doorbell chimed causing the silver-haired man to sigh in response.

"I should start collecting payment on monthly basis from that friend of yours, if I have to wait on him for dinner every evening." Zero muttered under his breath, as he made a move to answer the door.

True to the silver-haired man's words, the visitors outside the penthouse apartment unit's door was none other than the cheerful green eyed blond – Ichijo Takuma and his current assistant, Risa Miyazaki.

"I thought you could handle cooking?" Zero eyed the auburn haired vampire girl from the corner of his eyes, as he hold the door open for the duos to enter the unit

"I could, but he says he's too hungry to wait." Risa answered in a deadpanned manner, while Ichijo Takuma bobbed his head in agreement to the female's words.

Zero shakes his head in response, as he closed the door to the apartment unit closed while making his way back to the dining table. He did not bother to serve the duos, expecting them to be on self-service mode. They had, after all, being turning up promptly during dinner time at his place over the past six months since their departure from the Cross Academy. By now, any form of hospitality towards them has been laid to rest and Zero expected them to serve themselves these days.

Dinner was filled with the usual conversational topics, with Kaname and Ichijo discussing their company's stuff while Zero and Risa ate in silence. Zero had not once inquired on the relationship development between Risa and the green eyed blond, since he did not think it his position to do so. Despite the fact that he was the one pushing them together following the departure of the trio…

However, seeing as Risa was now cohabiting with the green eyed blond under the same roof and seemed to be at ease. Zero figured that he had nothing to worry himself with, he knew the girl enough to know that if Risa was uncomfortable with the idea of living under the same roof with Ichijo alone – she would have long moved out of the blond rented unit by now.

"So how are things going between the two of you?" Zero took the opportunity to ask, after Kaname retreated into the Study to answer a call from the Vampire Council and Risa had volunteered to wash up after dinner for the silver-haired teen.

"What do you mean…?" Ichijo Takuma grinned stupidly, trying to bypass Zero's inquisition act.

"Ichijo…don't try to fool me. You know what I am inquiring about." Zero stressed, keeping an eye out on the kitchen to check if the auburn haired vampire was anywhere in sight.

"…Fine, I admit I do have an interest in her but I can't say the same for her." Ichijo eventually responded with a sigh, as his eyes traveled to where the figure of Risa Miyazaki was.

"Try to be a little more patient with her. She doesn't really have a good childhood experience, and with her parents' relationship in that manner… it's no wonder that she tried to keep the relationship between the two of you as professional as possible. She did not want to risk anything, I know she does not look like it but it remains a fact that she was actually quite fragile when it comes down to emotional aspects." Zero told the green eyed blond solemnly.

"I know… that's why I didn't push her or anything. I'm just taking it one step at a time and sees where it goes from there. Akane told me before, Asami's the same age as her… and Akane's mother was not even born yet according to what she had mentioned. Her father, according to what I've checked was only ten years old this year – still had quite a long way to go. Well, I'm quite sure I'm a man with patience so I'll just wait and see how things would play out in the end." Ichijo Takuma responded to Zero's words, before making a move to stand and meet up with Risa who was now done with the dishes. Together the duos make their way back downstairs to their shared apartment unit in silence.

Date started: 5/2/2013

Date completed: 6/2/2013

P.S: So how is it? The first chapter to the sequel…? Question here, I need inputs on ideas of what to be put in this sequel… I can't have the trio back, sorry. ^^ I can however, have the following options available…

A – Have Zero bring back a child from his hunting mission, probably some emotionally scarred kid who has his parents kill by some lunatic level E until Zero comes along and saved the day. The child ended up sticking to Zero like superglue and resulted in Kaname's displeasure and jealousy… (if you people pick this option, please comment on the gender for the kid XD)

In this situation, the kid will be human but KanZe would not adopt the kid… most likely would classify him/her as a ward, would be passes over to Cross eventually on paper/legal terms.

B – Zero's ancestor – Mamoru Kiryuu turns up still alive, and sending a vampire kid off to Zero's doorsteps with only a note to explain situation before disappearing somewhere again. In this case, the kid would be around ten to thirteen years old… and you get to see Zero and Kaname at a loss of actions as they had no idea how to deal with a teenage ward on their hands. If this is the case, no need for the kid to be adopt by them either cause the kid would be related to Zero by blood, however distant it was.

So care to clue me in which scenario would you people prefer? :D

I'll only work on second chapter after my mind works out the scenario… cause the two options are battling in my mind :P Can't decide. Second chapter would be up sometime end-Feb. This would be the CNY present to my faithful readers of 'Visitors from the Future'!


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Embracing the Future

Genre: General/Romance/Friendship

Rating: T

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Vampire Knight. Copyright belongs to Hino Matsuri; I only use the characters for the story. I do, however own the Fujiwara Clan and its' related subordinates family.

Pairing: Kaname/Zero; mild Shiki/Rima; Ichijo/Risa(OC); Ichiru/Maria.

Summary: (AU) Sequel to 'Visitors from the Future', sets 6 months after last chapter of 'VFTF'. Need I say more? Wants to find out, stay tuned! WIP

Author's Notes: Last chapter, we basically have a summary of what happen in the three years span of the trio's absence. So Ichijo is courting his future wife XD KanZe are alright as of current, except Yagari trying to separate them from one another when opportunity arises XD Ok, not separate more like keeping them apart and hands off one another XD

Chapter 2 – In which Kaname and Zero gained a new houseguest…

"I don't think it's advisable to use the Artemis Rod in that manner…Yuuki."

That was the exact line that Kaname Kuran had caught wind of when he entered the master bedroom of that penthouse apartment he was sharing with his silver haired lover. It seems like Zero had taken the liberty to call Yuuki up while he was engaged in the Study attending to some matters concerning the newly reformed vampire council.

"Yes, I agree… it can be a dreadful thing when you have to do that on daily basis. Okay…I'll see what I can do on my side." Zero told Yuuki before he ended the call, and shifted his attention to his lover who is now leaning against the doorway watching him with curiosity.

"I take it as you contacted Yuuki already?" Kaname said, as he sauntered into the bedroom heading for his lover's direction.

"Yes, I would have thought that was obvious." Zero throws back at the former dryly, placing his cellular phone by the bedside table while regarding Kaname coolly.

"So would you perhaps like to enlighten me on what Yuuki was speaking to you about?" Kaname Kuran prompted, drawing the silver-haired man into his embrace while he breathes in his lover's scent.

"Apparently, after you left the academy the new students of the night-class weren't really receptive to the school rules and all. Yuuki wasn't sure what she can do to keep them in line, unlike you she haven't really grasp a hold of her pureblood powers just yet and even with her pureblood aura flaring at its maximum level…it is still not menacing enough to warn them off. So she was thinking of using the Artemis Rod on them to serve as a final warning or sort, but I told her it wasn't really advisable." Zero replied as he relaxes into his lover's comforting embrace and let out a sigh of contentment.

"I see…Yuuki is still not very accustomed to dealing with the whole lot of them then…" Kaname commented, thinking of whether or not he should pop by the school to show his face around for a little while in order to help his little sister out.

"I wouldn't think about it, Yuuki needs to learn on her own. If she keeps on relying on you for damage control, she's not going to learn it on her own in time to come." Zero as though sensing his dark-haired lover's thoughts, suddenly said.

"Then what do you have in mind to do for this situation then?" Kaname Kuran eyed his silver-haired lover with a fond look in his eyes as he voiced his doubts across.

"I do have an idea, but I need to speak with my master first." Zero responded, pushing aside the topic for the time-being and succumbed to Kaname's charms at seducing him for the night.

"Let's just hope we won't get any interruptions tonight." The pureblood mused, as he flipped his lover down onto the bed behind them as he started to work his 'magic' on Zero.

Sad to say the gods are there in heaven are not all that accommodating to Kaname's request for most if not all of the time. The pureblood was about to go for a second round of pleasuring his silver-haired lover when the doorbell sounded, followed by the ringing of their apartment's phone.

"…" Kaname throws a look of annoyance at their master bedroom's door, before he grudgingly removed himself from his lover and pulled his black silky bathrobe over his body loosely and handed his lover the silky satin white one.

"Thanks come on… I'll get the door. You answered the phone." Zero directed to the miffed looking pureblood, he is not going to risk the man scaring off visitors despite the fact that it was rather late for them to have visitors around.

Unwillingly, Kaname Kuran trudged over to the place where their cordless phone was sitting and answered it while Zero headed for the direction of the door.

Zero pulled the front door leading to their apartment unit open to find a kid standing outside with luggage, looking at him with some apprehension on the face. The kid appeared to be around the age of ten, with short hair that the color shading reminded Zero of Maria Kurenai and beautiful lilac eyes of the Hiou clan, or the Kiryuu family.

Leonard Kiryuu stood apprehensively on the front porch of the penthouse apartment of Kiryuu Zero, inwardly fighting an internal battle with his inner-self as he waited patiently for someone to answer the door.

The past seventy-two hours for Leonard was like a whirlwind, and up until the current point of time he was still disoriented by the turns of events. One week ago, he was still happily discussing birthday plans for his party with his parents. And exactly one week later, he was met with the devastating news of his parents having been killed instantly in a hit and run incident. Having being met with the fate of losing both his parents' overnight, the ten year old Leonard was taken into the local orphanage while the social workers help to attend to his parents' funeral plans.

He had been quite ready to resign himself to the idea of residing in the orphanage for a long term basis when a middle-aged man showed up in front of that social worker, claiming to be a representative of his long-lost relative residing in Japan. That man had introduced himself as Richard Meyer, and expressed his intention to assist his relative in gaining custody of him following his parents' misfortunes.

The social worker had then spend a day busying with the legal procedures and obtaining evidence to support the man's statements, before finally allowing Leonard to leave with the said man.

Leonard spend the following day with the supposedly 'Richard Meyer' in the hotel room the former was staying at, only to find out that the 'Richard Meyer' was only an alias identity and that the man's real name was Kiryuu Mamoru, his grand-father in blood.

The information about their family being vampires' hunters shock him to the core, because he had spend his whole life in peace and harmony knowing his father – Kiryuu Yahiko as a normal manager working in a local bank of Newcastle, United Kingdom. His mother, Maryann Smith, on the other hand was working as a local lecturer in the University of Newcastle, UK teaching Finance. He had been spending his last ten years of his life thinking himself as an ordinary human being, and suddenly some unknown man popped into his life and tells him things that seem too far-stretched to be true? How does one react to this kind of life-altering news anyway?

{Flash Back}

In the hotel room of Kiryuu Mamoru, within the Holiday Inn Express Newcastle situated in Waterloo Square St. James Boulevard. The duos were engaged in a staring contest of sort, the ten year old boy had on a look of skepticism while the middle-aged man seem to be quite amused by the reaction received from the boy following the end of his announcement of him being the grand-father of the ten year old Leonard Kiryuu.

"Surely, you are pulling my leg – right? You look extremely young to be a grandparent to me." Leonard Kiryuu commented, as he eyed the middle-aged man in front of him with skepticism.

"I know you find it hard to believe me at this point of time, but what do I have to benefit by lying to you?" The man who claimed to be Mamoru Kiryuu arched an eyebrow up in response as he regarded Leonard coolly.

"But didn't you just claim to be an outsider who is assisting my living kin in Japan to gain custody of me in front of the social worker just now?" Leonard argued, furrowing his brows in confusion.

"If you think me too young to be your grand-father, how would the others' think of me if I claim to be your grand-father from the start? Besides, I was supposed to be 'dead' in Japan… my current identity as Richard Meyer was not exactly a lie either because that was what the public known me as back in Japan." Mamoru Kiryuu reasoned.

"And you expect me to simply suck it up and take it as it is?" Leonard exclaimed; an expression of incredulity was seen reflecting on his features.

"That my dear boy… you have no choice but to believe me. I am indeed your grandfather to boot, and the reason why I'm still so young was because of my heritage of being a vampire. I can very much assure you I am already eighty this year, and vampires ages far more slowly than typical human beings. If it would convince you, I do not mind showing you my old hunting license. I still have the license with me, since I cannot simply discard it out of the window even if Kiryuu Mamoru is supposed to be dead." Mamoru Kiryuu said in a deadpanned manner.

"I beg your pardon…? What license again?" Leonard repeated.

"Hunter's license… I used to do vampires hunting for a living." Mamoru Kiryuu explained.

"Certainly you are not telling me that all these vampires thingy are true, are you?" Leonard was beyond incredulous now.

"They are indeed true, and you will be surprised by just how many of these well-known people in this world are actually vampires in disguise." Mamoru smirked.

"Proved it then…" Leonard challenged.

"… How do you want me to prove it to you then?" Mamoru Kiryuu throws back at the boy of ten.

"Fangs… vampires have them, isn't it?" The boy prompted.

"Indeed… most of them do." Mamoru Kiryuu sighed as he responded.

"You mean there are vampires who don't have fangs?" Leonard arched an eyebrow up in skepticism.

"There are… although these are considered vamp-lings. These types of vampires are either mutants species or that they have some kind of charms on them that forbidden them to lengthen their fangs." Mamoru further on explained, and classify himself as the first type.

"If that's the case, how are you going to prove your vampire origins to me?"

"Self-mutilation method then… not that I fancied doing this but I supposed it cannot be helped. Vampires heal extremely fast…" Mamoru said as he slit his wrist veins across hard, drawing blood.

Leonard's eyes boggled as he witnessed how Mamoru had licked the blood dried from his wrist to show a healing wound to him. Within a matter of seconds, the hideous wound was no more… not even a scar could be seen on the man's pale skin.

"Wow… this is brilliant. Would I be able to do this too?" Leonard asked in awe, now that his doubts of the vampires issue were out of the window.

"Unfortunately, no… you only have a quarter of the vampire genes in you. So it would not work… your cousin though was another matter altogether." Mamoru said, pulling down his sleeves so to cover up his still tender skin from the wound that just healed.

{End of Flashback}

Anyway, his newly found grand-father then proceeded to relay to him about the issue of his future residential area to be moved and shifted to Japan. Apparently, he was to be staying with his cousin – Zero Kiryuu.

Mamoru Kiryuu then carted him off to the earliest flight departing for Japan, and dropped him off on the front porch of his cousin's residence with only a note to explain his identity and that his cousin was to take him in until he reached to the age of adulthood.

So now Leonard stood innocently and apprehensively as his cousin scanned the note from that grand-father of his, and then followed by a through assessment of his outlook appearances before he was finally allowed entry into the apartment.

Zero Kiryuu felt the start of a migraine setting in on him as he rotated his sight between his new-found cousin, and that note from his not so dead grand-father. He did not know how to react to this specific situation. Heck, he didn't even know that he had an uncle until today… his late parents' had did a brilliant job at keeping things secret and away from his knowledge. Inwardly, he wondered if Ichiru had any inkling to their now dead uncle or not…

When Kaname Kuran ended the call with the council informing him of the reappearance of one Mamoru Hiou in the country after missing for a period of twenty years… nothing could have prepared himself for the sight that meet his eyes in the apartment's living room. There was a ten year old kid sitting nervously on the sofa couch, while his silver-haired lover was pacing about the room with waves of irritation rolling off the aura.

"Zero…what's going on here?" Kaname questioned, flicking his eyes between the kid and his lover.

"…" Zero contemplated on addressing his lover's question, or to simply throw the former the note from his grandfather and eventually settled for the latter option. Since, he was quite certain that he would not be able to keep himself from venting his frustration on his lover at this point of time.

Kaname took the note and scanned through the contents swiftly. When he reached the end of the note, he had managed to pin-point the reason behind his lover's agitation. It would appears that his lover did not take it too well that the late Kiryuu couple failed to provide certain information about his other living kin out there in the other parts of the world, until today. Atop of it all, there is also the issue of Kiryuu Mamoru's mysterious disappearances twenty years ago which Zero had thought him to be dead… only to find out that the former was still very much alive and kicking today.

"Leonard Kiryuu…?" Kaname took the matter in his own hands, knowing that Zero was still fuming inwardly and might not have the mood to be dealing with his new-found cousin.

"Yes, Sir…" Leonard found himself responding in a manner that reminded him painfully of the times he was called into the school's discipline room to speak with the discipline master. As soon as that notion fleeted him by in the mind, the ten year old boy winced.

"Perhaps you could kindly fill us in on what has happened to your parents…? I'm afraid the note only informed us to take you in as our ward until you are of age, it didn't exactly specify the reason behind the situation that calls for such arrangement to be made." Kaname prompted his expression the usual mask of indifference.

Leonard recounted the events that transpired from the point of his parents' demise to how he met his 'grand-father', and then ending with the happenings that led up to his current plight of being abandoned on the doorstep of the Kiryuu-Kuran residence.

"Where is he now?" Zero gritted out, he had half the mind to march up to his unknown grandfather and give him hell for simply dropping the bombshell on him without any prior warnings in advance.

"I don't know… he just told me he had something else to attend for, left me here with that note claiming to say that you would not cast me out onto the streets. And then he left." Leonard responded, matter-of-factly with a nonchalant shrug on his part.

"Zero, I think it would be better to settle him down first. The rest, we can discuss when morning comes around." Kaname told his irate silver-haired lover.

"Indeed." Zero agreed grudgingly, before turning towards Leonard and said. "Come, I'll show you to the room which you would be using during your period of stay here."

Leonard rises to his feet and followed his cousin dutifully; although he was curious about the relationship between his cousin and that dark-haired man that reminded him painfully of his school discipline master… he figured it would be best to keep his comments to himself for the time-being.

Meanwhile, Fujiwara Yumi faced-palm herself upon receiving the news of what had happened earlier on with one Mamoru Kiryuu. She really had to hand it in to that man's guts for doing what he did. Zero would be marching in here demanding for an explanation when dawn breaks, and just the thought of it gives the pureblood lady of the Fujiwara clan a migraine.

"Shizuru, please pay that uncle of yours a visit… tell him to either lay low for the next two weeks or he could simply stop his hiding and come out into the public and faced his grand-children." Fujiwara Yumi commented, massaging the sides of her temples wearily.

Kaien Cross strolled into the cozy pub-house situated in the town where most hunters' resided at freaking 3am in the morning.

"I would like to have a cup of Vodka, thank you." Kaien said, directing his words to the man behind the counter with a green bandana wrapped around his head hiding the hair color from patrons' view.

Silence was the only thing that met the Chairman's ears, as it was still too early for most hunters to be up and about. Still there are a few early or late patrons in the pub, probably on their way out for a hunt or they were just coming back from a mission and decided to drop by for some alcohol to unwind their stress.

"There you go…" The cup of vodka was placed in front of the Chairman gently.

"I say… old pal, you are lucky that nobody managed to put the two and two together." Kaien Cross muttered aloud, as he sipped his drink slowly.

"Well… I dared say nobody knows who I am except you around here." The owner of the pub commented with a smirk.

"I have to admit you are quite good in your camouflaging work." Kaien Cross took in the piercing green contact lenses in the man's eyes, and also the matching green bandana that hides the actual hair from outsiders' view as he commented.

The Mamoru Kiryuu everyone knew out there was a proper and stern man, but the owner of the pub was one hell of a trendy and young man at heart. The infamous Mamoru Kiryuu had vanished off the plane of existence about twenty years ago from the public eyes after a mission gone wrong, which the majority of the hunter's population thought him dead. Only the vampire council had doubts pertaining to the news given by the association, as they were the ones whom are quite aware of Mamoru Kiryuu's nature of being a pureblood vamp.

Either way, months later after the supposed death of Mamoru Kiryuu… a new pub was open in the same town where the hunter's association was situated by one mysterious young man going by the name of Richard Meyer. This young man had piercing green eyes and grayish blond hair, according to the eye-witness' recount… and for a while Kaien Cross was nearly fooled too. If it was not for the number of times, he had noticed the slip up in that aura feel of the man was eerily similar to the supposed dead Mamoru Kiryuu. Kaien Cross would not have it in mind to confront the man about what happened during that mission either.

Apparently, that mission for Mamoru Kiryuu to execute was a set-up of sort… someone amidst the association was jealous of the former abilities and set him up for a particularly dangerous mission that involved not typical Level E but an aristocrat who committed sinful acts. Now if under usual circumstances, hunters would not be able to heal properly with fatal injuries sustained. However, Mamoru Kiryuu was not simply just any Tom, Dick, Harry out there… he was a pureblood despite a having dysfunctional genes in him that resulted in his lack of fangs and inability to bite or turn anyone. However, his healing powers remains and hence his ultimate recovery from that near fatal wound sustain from the mission, approximately six months after his supposed demise.

Wanting to be near his family then, Mamoru Kiryuu had pulled in some strings by procuring fake identity for himself and camouflaging his outlook appearance. Next, he set up a pub under his alias name and conducts his business in the same town where the association stood. He made his pub into a chill-out location for local hunters, and that was how he obtained information of his family members since he obviously cannot turn up alive in front of them without risking anyone's detection.

Sometime last week, he must have received information from his younger son who chooses to lead a different lifestyle as compared to Kaoru Kiryuu who decided to continue the hunting legacy of the Kiryuu Clan… about the death threats received. The man had immediately posted up notice that he was needed back home to attend to some emergency and closed off the pub for a week, tonight was the first reopening day for the pub.

Turns out that his younger son, Yahiko had kept the death threats silent and away from the family's knowledge and hence the tragic events that happened to both Yahiko Kiryuu and Maryann Smith leaving behind only their ten year old son – Leonard in the living realm. Mamoru had promptly launched into the legal procedures to gain custody of the boy, but seeing as Kiryuu Mamoru was already 'dead' to the world. The sneaky and cunning man had resorted to using the name of Richard Meyer, claiming to be the boy's distant relative and was there to bring the child back to Japan where the boy's other living kin resided.

"So how old is the boy?" Kaien Cross asked.

"Ten… why do you ask?" Mamoru responded, clearing away emptied glasses from the counter top and prepared for the closing of the pub.

"Just wondering… Zero would flip, you know?" Kaien commented, draining the last of his vodka drink before he pulled his wallet out from his cloak pocket as an attempt to pay for the drink.

"Don't bother, it's on the house. Just keep my identity a secret from him, okay?" Mamoru said.

"…I don't get it, why are you even bothering to hide from Zero and Ichiru. They do know their heritage now, you know?" Kaien interjected pointedly.

"I am quite happy with my lifestyle now, and had no intention of changing it soon. Besides, I filed for Leonard's custody paper using Zero's name… they all survived years without knowing my existence, and I intend to keep it as that." With that, Mamoru Kiryuu started to shoo Kaien Cross out from his pub's doorway and flipped the sign to 'close' before heading to the back of the store and clean up the place.

Date started: 8/2/2013

Date completed: 10/2/2013

P.S: I figured I will mix option A & B together XD… I've already done kids and teenager in my last fic, I decided to fix the age at ten years old which is in between both groups, and I made the boy a human. Below are the settings for Leonard's parents, who won't be appearing again… at least I don't think they would appear. Either way, just for the reader references… Thank you for the wonderful reviews :D I hope this sequel would not be a disappointment to you people :P

Kiryuu Yahiko – Zero's Uncle, Mamoru's younger son who opted to do something else rather than continue on the hunting legacy for the Kiryuu Clan. Went to UK for studies and stayed there throughout his life, married local English lady and Leonard was born ten years ago to the couple.

Maryann Smith – Leonard's mother, the wife of Yahiko Kiryuu. Finance Lecturer in University of Newcastle, UK. Died three days ago together with her husband (Yahiko) in a car incident, leaving Leonard – their only son behind; who now Zero held the custody to.

**Introduction of Leonard below**:

Name: Leonard Andre Kiryuu

Age: 10

Birthday: 24 December 2005 (This fic is 3 years after trio's return and in one of my chapters in last fic… Zero was reading through annual report for the company from 2008 to 2012. So add in 3 years, would make current fic time-line around 2015. Ten years back would be 2005… :D)

Horoscope: Capricorn

Hair Color: Grayish Blond (Combined colors of parents' hair)

Eye Color: Lilac (Trademark of Hiou & Kiryuu Clan)

Hair Length: Short standard school-boy haircut

As for his personality and characteristics, read to find out XD


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Embracing the Future

Genre: General/Romance/Friendship

Rating: T

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Vampire Knight. Copyright belongs to Hino Matsuri; I only use the characters for the story. I do, however own the Fujiwara Clan and its' related subordinates family.

Pairing: Kaname/Zero; mild Ichijo/Risa (OC); Ichiru/Maria.

Summary: (AU) Sequel to 'Visitors from the Future', sets 6 months after last chapter of 'VFTF'. Need I say more? Wants to find out, stay tuned! WIP

Author's Notes: Okay… I decided to go with option A & B combined. I made Zero's cousin human instead… so it's an over-curious kid fascinated with vampires. Kaname reminded the poor boy of his school's discipline master XD so what is going to happen next…?

Chapter 3 – In which Leonard meet the aristocrats…Part 1

It was seven in the morning when the ten year old Leonard finally shoved the idea of catching up with his lacking sleep completely out from the window. Apparently, he was still unused to the new surrounding and hence his inability to sleep properly. Topping it off together, his stomach was growling from the lack of food from the night before.

Judging from the conversation he had had with the dark haired man… Kaname Kuran, it seems like he would be the only human residing in this apartment unit. So for a while he wondered whether he should keep his volume down so as to avoid disturbing the vampire duos rest… the thought was soon discarded when he noticed both of them up and about. In fact, they were seated at the dining table having breakfast…

"Zero… looks like our little house-guest has awakened." Kaname commented, taking a sip out from his mug of coffee while he reached for the folded new copy of the morning papers.

"Good morning, I hope you slept well?" Zero started, greeting the boy with a small tentative smile. Although, he was still slightly irked by his grandfather's work but he supposed it would be best to not cause any more discomfort for the poor boy. Hence, he decided to start breaking the ice between them.

"Good morning… I think I'm still on jetlag… I'll take another nap later on in the day. I haven't been able to sleep well just now." Leonard said as he took a seat at the dining table after some slight hesitance on his part.

"Oh…okay, why don't you join us for breakfast then?" Zero suggested, waving the boy over to the dining table where the bread and the various types of bread-spread has been placed in the middle of the dining table.

Breakfast was taken in silence, and with the young ward of the Kiryuu-Kuran household oddly subdued. The two adults on the other hand were busy communicating with one another through eye-contact means. The silence was only broken when the mantle clock seated atop of the display cabinet situated on the left side of the living room, facing the dining table directly struck seven-thirty in the morning.

"I'm leaving for work now…are you leaving yet?" Kaname prompted, folding up the newspaper and setting it aside as he stood to readjust his attire for work.

"Not yet… but I do know you have to leave now. Your meeting's at eight forty-five, isn't it?" Zero responded, as he too stood to grab the black coat of Kaname that was previous draped casually over the sofa couch and handed it to his dark-haired lover.

"Indeed… I'll see you for lunch then?" Kaname questioned, as he reached for his briefcase that was previously placed by the empty chair next to his dining seat. All the while, he was resisting the urge to request for a 'good-bye kiss' from his silver-haired lover… he knew by now that Zero was never into public display of affections.

If they were alone in the dining area, there might still be a slim chance of him getting what he wanted from Zero… but with that new kid around, that would hardly be the case. It was good enough for Zero to be even willing to hand him his outer coat and walk him to the door personally before pecking him lightly on the cheeks to send him off for work. Well, Kaname supposed this was better than getting nothing from his lover… since if this has been three years ago, Zero would most likely choose to ignore him altogether instead of indulging him.

Zero returned to the dining table after sending off Kaname looking a little on the flushing side, but he supposed it cannot be helped. Usually, he would send Kaname off by giving the former a full kiss on the lips before the pureblood leave home for work. However, that obviously could not be the case this morning seeing as they have an outsider together in the house with them.

Kaname, having detected his reluctance had been accommodating enough to make do with a tone down version of their daily 'routine' directly outside on their front porch of the penthouse apartment they were residing in. Luckily enough, the whole top floor belongs to them and nobody else… if not; Zero would probably die from embarrassment by now. Never in his life has he ever tried kissing anyone out in the public, even if it was just a faint kiss on the cheeks… Kaname though, was another matter entirely.

That guy, Zero swore… just enjoy watching him squirm uneasily at most of the time. Kaname would sneak in little kisses and touches here and there on his body parts, whenever they were left alone or that no one was watching them in public. The sheer thought of it brought Zero's memory back down to what happened some hours ago in the bedroom, and his blush deepens almost immediately catching the attention of his ten year old cousin in the process.

"…Was that guy your boyfriend?" Leonard asked, finally succeeding in pushing his embarrassment aside and to the very back of his mind.

Zero stared at the boy in shock before sighing aloud in resignation and said. "Yes, I supposed you could say that."

"Well…I guess that explains the noise level emitting from the master bedroom some time ago then." The boy smirked, causing Zero to flush a deeper red.

"You heard…?" Zero was beyond mortified, and inwardly he started cursing his lack of insight of allowing Kaname to tempt him into a quick round of pleasurable sex when his young cousin was just staying in the room across his master bedroom.

"Yes I heard… and one advice for you. If that's the volume you guys are creating during those activities, you might want to consider sound-proofing the room or alternatively, send me off to some boarding school." Leonard grinned impishly, and his grin widens when he noted how his cousin was blushing madly when he commented about the volume created from the 'love-making' session between the vampire duos.

"...I thought you wanted to sleep off your jetlag?" Zero huffed in annoyance, as he cleared away the table freeing it for other use.

"Of course, but I didn't say immediately after breakfast… didn't I?" Leonard throws back at his cousin who is about twice his age judging from the outlook appearance.

"So how old are you this year?" Zero prompted, as he busied himself in the kitchen putting away the remaining bread and bread-spread jars back into their respective storage area.

"I'm ten… my birthday just passed last week." Leonard responded, his eyes downcast as he tried to blink back the tears that is now threatening to spill forth as his memories of his parents came flooding to the front of his mind, again.

"Christmas…?" Zero quirked an eyebrow up in question.

"No… it's on Christmas Eve." The boy smiled weakly.

"Ah…" Zero made a knowing sound, while Leonard added as an afterthought. "My parents used to say that I'm their best Christmas present ever received…"

There was a moment of silence as Zero allowed the boy some minutes to mourn the loss of his parents, before speaking up again.

"Well, we will talk about the issue of your studies later tonight during dinner. You will get to meet some new people too. Don't worry; I won't let them bite you. Now, I need to be off for work. There's some money below the mantle clock there, you can use them to get food for lunch… if I'm not back from work yet.

During this period of time, you can feel free to roam about the place and get yourself familiarize… just stay out from the master bedroom and the study room. We have a pool upstairs, there's a spiral staircase that led up to it outside the house. Have fun exploring, try not to sleep your day away unless you want to join the nocturnal lifestyle of the vampires." Zero commented, patting his cousin gently on the shoulder as he whizzed past him heading for the master bedroom to get change for work.

The reason why Zero was taking his own sweet time to get ready for work today had to do with a certain someone going by the name of Kishimoto Hideo… the sheer thought of heading into the office and deal with that the heir of Kishimoto Incorporation was so dreadful that if possible, Zero was contemplating on the idea to call in sick for the day.

Apparently, Kishimoto Hideo had decided to start helping his father out in the family business at a more active pace than before. Initially, Zero only had to deal with him once in three months and that is during the quarterly sales meeting… but now it was down to once a month. Either that guy was present for the facility visit scheduled or that he would be there during the product launch event.

Quite honestly, Zero had no idea why Kishimoto Hideo would be present for the product launch. They are not the one launching the product for sale, the former company manufactured microchips not the computers itself. Later on in the day, he was going to have to speak with that guy again about the cost of their next batch of microchips purchase… Thankfully, Tachibana Kenjiro would be assisting him then.

Zero had no intention to deal with Kishimoto Hideo alone, that guy still managed to creep him out even after all these years. There has been a time whereby Zero was tempted to stick some anti-vampire charms onto the former; because of the way that guy was leering in his direction. Of course, he had kept this little detail away from his lover's knowledge. The last thing he wanted Kaname to do was to treat him as though he was some 'damsel in distresses, which he wasn't. He was quite skillful in the area of self-defense.

Ichiru Kiryuu was in his private office situated within the company 'H&K Enterprise' working on the latest budget for the sales department, when the phone intercom system buzzed to life.

"Kiryuu-san, Maria Ojousan has reached. Should I allow her entry?" Ichiru's secretary asked.

"I got it, you can let her in." Ichiru responded, ending the intercom session from his side.

H&K Enterprise was founded two and a half years ago, after Ichiru brought up the issue that the business of the Hiou Clan are too scattered and unorganized making it quite a hassle to manage on the whole. Seeing as the Kurenai Clan was holding about half the business of the Hiou Clan following the demise of Shizuka Hiou, and with his engagement to Maria… it seem only logical to merge both sector together and managed on the whole.

That was the start of the founding of 'H&K Enterprise', in which case the 'H&K' basically translated to 'Hiou & Kurenai'. All the business labeled under the trademark logo of 'Sakura' was reclassify under the management of H&K, and operated as a subsidiary company to the H&K Enterprise. Due to the fact that Ichiru was also managing a portion of the Fujiwara business at the same time, he spends his Mondays working in the showroom of Matsushita Auto-mobile Limited. The rest of the weekdays, he would be working in his office at H&K Enterprise.

His main job over at the showroom of Matsushita Auto-mobile Limited was to handle the company's website management, seeing as he did a major in management accounting and a minor in web-designing for his business related diploma program following his graduation from Cross Academy. The diploma program which he took was a full-time accelerated program which squeezes a three year program into a mere period of one year on the campus of Kyoto's Fujiwara Gakuen. That one year was a living nightmare for him, but thankfully it was all over now.

Ichiru could still remember how his schooling time-table was pack from Monday to Sunday, seven days a week with eight hours of lessons on weekdays and six hours on Saturday, ending with three hours tutorial on Sunday. He hardly has time for personal life then, everyday was full of school work and in order not to let Maria feel down in her spirits. Ichiru has made an effort to call his little fiancée up at least once a week to speak for an hour or so, as for his elder twin… he would most commonly be seen communicating with the former via email.

During his one year period of study, most of his duties pertaining to the company issues were either handled by Martin Kurenai or Ayano. The latter had been a great help to him that he agreed. However, Ayano being the daughter and heiress to 'Matsushita Auto-mobile Limited'… Ichiru had made it a point to only assign her duties relating to her own family business, and not anything to do with H&K Enterprise. Therefore, he now kept Ayano as his personal assistant but employ separate personnel to handle secretarial work for him.

Today, Ichiru was the Operations Manager for H&K Enterprise. Ayano, as his personal assistant, shared his office area. Only most of the time, she would be working on projects involving the Fujiwara side of the business and she kept Ichiru's schedule up to date. Issues that relates to H&K would be handled by his other secretary situated out-front, with the rest of the department staff.

"Ichiru…" Maria's voice jolted him out from his thoughts.

"Maria… what brought you over?" Ichiru asked, setting aside his work temporary as he attended to his fiancée.

"In case you haven't notice, it's time for lunch already." Maria shakes her head ruefully at her fiancé. She had known by now that her fiancé was quite a workaholic when nobody was there to supervise.

"Good afternoon, Maria-san." Ayano greeted, leaving the office for her own lunch period as she provide some privacy for the couple behind.

Maria Kurenai nodded to her fiancé assistant in acknowledgement; the former presence in Ichiru's life has never irked her in the slightest bit. Unlike some, her confidence level in her fiancé never wavered despite the fact that Ichiru was often surrounded by opposite genders personnel. The reason behind her confidence level was not unfounded, since practically everyone working in the company has known by now that Ichiru and she was engaged to be married by the end of next month. The other reason behind her confidence in Ichiru would be due to the fact that she knew Ichiru would never forsake her for someone else, unless Shizuka Hiou turns up alive again.

"So where do you want to go for lunch?" Ichiru prompted, making a grab for his outer cloak that was draped over the back of his working chair.

Maria shrugged, deciding to leave the decision to her fiancé. Frankly speaking, she was willing to dine anywhere so long she does not have to dine alone. The one year whereby Ichiru was away in Kyoto studying, she had been intruding on the Kuran's hospitality whenever her parents' were away for business trips simply because she does not wish to be alone at home staring at the four walls.

Ichiru decided to have lunch at the newly opened cafe restaurant just opposite of the office building, he had tons of work to be done at his work desk and have no intention to travel far today. However, he was not going to suggest dining at the staff canteen downstairs too. After all, he had no intention to be in the center of attention further. There was no doubt if they choose to dine downstairs with most of the staffs working in this building; both Maria and he would be subjected to endless inquiries on their wedding preparation work.

Their wedding ceremony was a mere four weeks away from today - the 31st December 2015. The reason why he was rushing to get his work done over the next one week was that he knew there would be a lot of fuss during the three weeks that follows till the wedding date. There is the photo-shoot session scheduled, the booking of the reception area for the wedding banquet of sort, the deciding of the catering menu…etc. Not to forget there is also the honeymoon trip to be plan, and also to get the new residence abode ready for the move.

As of current, both Maria and he were still residing within Cross Academy in the Moon Dormitory building imposing on Yuuki's hospitality. That however cannot be the situation once they are legally bind to one another through the wedding ceremony, and hence his decision to look into the idea of purchasing a house or at least a flat for their future residence in the town area.

Zero's apartment was situated within the district of Shibuya, one of the most bustling parts of Tokyo City. Cross Academy on the other hand was situated in the town of Hinode, a small town sandwich in between the cities of Ome and Akiruno. The whole Tokyo metropolis city comprises of twenty-three special wards, twenty-six cities, five towns and eight villages.

Among them, the pricing of residential buildings situated within the twenty-three special wards of Tokyo was rather steep as compared to the other parts of Tokyo City. Since these twenty-three special wards are the most bustling parts and with the most population count within the country of Japan. Currently, the H&K Enterprise stood on the grounds of the city of Akishima… as the rental rate is more affordable as compared to setting up the company within the special wards area of Tokyo.

Taking into consideration of the convenience factor, Ichiru decided upon the idea of getting a house within the same city to cut down traveling time. The city was about two hours away from the Cross Academy and about four hours away from his elder twin's residence when traveling by car.

"Ichiru… you are zoning out on me, are you certain that you are okay? You are not getting cold feet from the wedding, are you?" Maria Kurenai frowned, eyeing her fiancé with concern.

"Huh…? No, I'm alright… I was just thinking whether or not to get the house or should I get a flat somewhere nearer to my brother's place, that's all." Ichiru commented, as he hurried to reassure his fiancée that he was not thinking about backing out from the wedding.

"Ah…that's entirely up to your choice. I'm fine with either option…" Maria responded reaching across the table to grasp Ichiru's in a tight comforting squeeze.

Ichiru sighed inwardly with content, he was grateful for Maria's consideration of his plight. She knew of his dilemma, and had allowed him freedom in making the choice instead of ordering him to comply to her wish instead. Maria knew of his reluctance to have a grand wedding ceremony, and had spoken to both her parents' about it using the excuse of her uneasiness for being around too much a crowd thus successfully allowing the event to shrink in size.

His fiancée also knew of his reluctance to participate heavily in the wedding planning phase, and had taken it upon her-self to discuss the details with his future mother-in-law while he concentrated on the business aspects for the family instead. Now Maria was even willing to accommodate to his desire to reside somewhere closer to his elder twin, despite her own uneasiness for being surrounded by crowd. That was when he had his mind made up… he was going to place Maria's wish above his own for this one time.

Just like what his elder twin had been telling him before during their phone conversation some nights ago, when he had called the former up to inform Zero of his impending nuptial date. Zero had mentioned about compromising and being accommodating to one another's desires from time to time, in order to make a relationship work. His twin had stressed to him on the idea of how accommodating Maria was always being when it comes down to the idea of him, she had agreed to the idea of keeping the event small and private and forgoing plans that are too much a hassle by putting herself into his shoe and that he should learn to accommodate his future wife's desire every once in a while.

After all, the whole relationship thing was about understanding, compromising and being accommodating to one another's thoughts and feelings. Also, to make a relationship work out well… efforts from both parties would be required. Otherwise, sooner or later the relationship would collapse and both parties would then go their separate ways.

"So… what's your final decision then?" Maria prompted; she could easily read Ichiru's feelings now after being together for a period of three years. She had seen how Ichiru's eyes had brighten up with light before, and that usually mean that whatever was bugging the said man was no longer an issue for the former.

"That is for me to know, and you to find out." Ichiru smirked, having fun at teasing his bubbly fiancée.

Maria tried her best to glare at Ichiru, but eventually she gave up as she knew that glare of hers was just not intimidating enough to waver her fiancé decision to keep his decision away from her knowledge.

"Yuuki-sama, are you ready?" Ruka Souen knocked on Yuuki's door and prompted.

They had been invited over by Kiryuu Zero for dinner that evening, and hence classes for the night-class were canceled for the day. In order to prevent the other night-class members from creating havoc simply because Yuuki was not around for the night, it was decided that Akatsuki Kain will not be joining them at the Kiryuu-Kuran household for dinner but to stay behind and keep watch on the night-class students.

For tonight's dinner at Zero's apartment, only Yuuki, Ruka and Aidou would be turning up for it. Honestly speaking, neither of them knew why Zero Kiryuu felt like inviting them over for an impromptu dinner gathering. Since they obviously just had one over Christmas… but that was the other way around, with Zero and Kaname visiting them back here at the academy instead of them traveling over.

They took the limo car over, seeing as neither Ruka nor Aidou was a fan of public transport and Yuuki simply cannot be bothered to argue with them.

"So does either of you have any ideas as to why Zero suddenly wanted us over for dinner?" Yuuki questioned, once they settled themselves in the car setting off for their destination for tonight's event.

"No." Aidou Hanabusa shakes his head in response, with his new duties as the Vice-President of the Night-Class… he hardly have time to poke around for gossips these days. Heck, he didn't even have time to entertain his mother's relentless attempts of trying to match-make him with potential matches. The blue eyed blond believes that this is the only plus point for accepting the position of being Vice-President to the Night-Class, the duties kept him busy from the family meeting unless it was really a matter of urgency.

Leonard was currently assisting his cousin preparing tonight's dinner, while Kaname waited outside in the living room area with one of his business proposals in hand. The pureblood was adamant of staying out from the kitchen area, unless it was inevitable for him to be in there. Normally, he would help if Zero requested for his assistance but today he decided to leave his usual task of setting the table to their latest houseguest. It was nice to see a kid assisting Zero out in the task of getting dinner ready, as it has been quite some-time since he find himself witnessing one of such moments.

Damn… if it was not for the fact that Zero was still reluctant to the idea of conceiving just yet… he would have prep his silver-haired lover up for that ritual and gotten him pregnant at the first go. Kaname was thinking, a wistful sigh escaping from his lips upon the sheer notion of putting his thoughts into action. Unfortunately, the last thing he wanted to do was to rush into things and pressure his beautiful silver-haired lover into giving in.

'Well… the third anniversary of the new vampire council is approaching; let's see if I could get Zero to agree to the idea of announcing our relationship openly to the public this year." Kaname thought, before his senses pick up the aura of his beloved sister outside their front door and he took the initiative to answer the door on behalf of his busy lover.

Date started: 10/2/2013

Date completed: 11/2/2013

P.S: How's this chapter? I'm putting in Mamoru Kiryuu's scene in the next… XD after Leonard meet Yuuki and gang of course :D


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Embracing the Future

Genre: General/Romance/Friendship

Rating: T

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Vampire Knight. Copyright belongs to Hino Matsuri; I only use the characters for the story. I do, however own the Fujiwara Clan and its' related subordinates family.

Pairing: Kaname/Zero; mild Ichijo/Risa (OC); Ichiru/Maria; Shiki/Rima.

Summary: (AU) Sequel to 'Visitors from the Future', sets 6 months after last chapter of 'VFTF'. Need I say more? Wants to find out, stay tuned! WIP

Author's Notes: Ready for Part 2…? Here we go!

Chapter 4 – In which Leonard meet the aristocrats…Part 2

The vampire trios blinked at the person who answered the door in stunned silence; obviously they never thought it possible for the pureblood heir of the Kuran Clan to come out personally to welcome them into the apartment.

"Yuuki, Aidou and Ruka… are you three coming in?" Kaname prompted, arching an eyebrow up in question as he took in their stunned expression with mild amusement apparent in his swirling chocolate orbs.

"Of course…we are just surprise that it was you whom answered the door." Yuuki responded smoothly.

"Ah… that's because Zero's in the kitchen, so I thought to make myself useful instead of sitting around idly." Kaname Kuran answered with ease.

"Where's Ichijo…?" Aidou asked, upon noticing the green eyed blond absence.

"I reckoned he was still on his way over, but he will most certainly arrive in time for dinner here." Kaname responded. He was going to get Aidou as well as Ruka to make them-selves at home, but eventually discarded the idea because he knew those two would never dare to overstep their boundary.

On the other hand, Leonard Kiryuu, who had been assisting his cousin in the kitchen, was constantly sneaking glances at the new arrivals. Zero, of course had noticed his young cousin's curiosity being directed outside and he would have send the boy out to greet Yuuki if it wasn't for the fact that his young cousin was still unnerved by Kaname's presence.

"You know, you don't really have to stay in here with me. You can jolly well be outside enjoying the TV while I get dinner ready on my own." Zero started, trying to coax his cousin into informing him of the reason behind the boy's uneasiness around his dark-haired lover.

"I know…but if you don't mind, I would much rather be here with you than to stay outside. No offences, but that boy-friend of yours unsettled me still." Leonard admitted with a faint tinge of blush decorating his cheeks, he knew it was silly of him to behave in such manner but he can't help it. Those scrutiny gaze of that Kaname Kuran reminded him too much of how his school's discipline master would regard him, whenever he was caught doing any form of mischief acts.

"Care to tell me why do you feel that way?" Zero prompted, his eyes never leave the dish he was cooking over the stove as he voiced his question to his young cousin, and now his ward.

"He reminded me of Mr. Roland…" The boy responded meekly.

"Mr. Roland…? Who is that?" Zero asked, blinking as he regarded his cousin with confusion apparent in his lilac eyes.

"Oh…he's my former school's discipline master." Leonard hurried to explain, mentally reminding himself not to refer to his former school's discipline master by the name again because no one here would know who he is talking about.

"…" Zero had no idea whether to laugh or say anything in response to his young cousin's words, the idea of his lover resembling some discipline master in school was kind of hard for him to picture. In the end, he settled for a slight shake of his head and said.

"Come on; help me bring those dishes out. I assumed you had set the table already?"

"Yes, I already set the table for eight…" Leonard responded, as he started to bring out the ready dishes to the dining area.

Meanwhile, Yuuki who had been wondering about the reason behind this impromptu dinner session requested by Zero finally landed her sight on the ten year old Leonard Kiryuu and promptly turn startling eyes on her elder brother.

"Who is that boy?"

"Here I was wondering when you're going to notice his presence around here… seeing that he's human and the scent should be quite obvious to you, Yuuki…" Kaname commented dryly as he shook his head in response to his beloved sister's retarded reactions. Both Aidou Hanabusa and Ruka Souen had long caught on to Leonard's presence the moment they stepped into the apartment, but Kaname had warned them into silence as he wanted to test Yuuki's reactions himself.

Upon the end of Kaname's words, Yuuki Kuran flushed crimson in embarrassment. Even after three years, Yuuki still finds it hard to decipher the differences between a vampire and a human… when it should have been easier to gauge with her heighten vampire senses.

The sound of Zero announcing that the dinner was ready had every one who was lounging in the living room area to start moving towards the dining area. Once Zero brought out the last dish of the day, he slid into his seat next to his dark-haired lover who was seated at the head of the rectangular shape of their dining table. Yuuki was seated on the other side of Kaname, with Aidou on her other side.

"So Zero… who is this little boy?" Yuuki asked, as she observed the boy's appearance openly causing the ten year old to flush crimson.

"I would very much rather wait for Ichijo to arrive before saying anything, because I had no intention to repeat my words upon his arrival just because he had missed the announcement." Zero responded in a deadpanned manner.

"Oh…okay…" Yuuki dropped the subject easily enough, deciding that she could deal with the idea of waiting another few more minutes for the green eyed blond vampire's arrival.

No sooner had the words left Yuuki's lips, the doorbell leading to the penthouse apartment sounded promptly at seven on the dot. Zero made a move to stand and answer the door when the stealth-like female guard of Kaname beats him to the task.

"Kaname…when did Seiren got back?" Zero asked, startled by the female's sudden presence in his apartment unit.

"Five minutes ago…" Kaname kindly supplied, while his silver-haired lover sighed and made a move to add another set of cutlery onto the dining table.

"Looks like we arrived in time for dinner again…!" Ichijo Takuma beamed as he strolled into the dining area, taking the seat facing his childhood friend without a bat of his eyelid while Risa took the seat next to Leonard Kiryuu leaving Seiren the only seat available on the other side of Ichijo.

"Zero…now that we are all here, care to enlighten us on just who exactly this little boy was already?" Yuuki piped up, as she could no longer withstand the bubbling anticipation in her chest any longer.

"This boy here is my cousin off my father's side of the family; his parents' were both unfortunately killed in a car accident some-time ago. Previously, he was residing in the UK with both his parents…now though, he was officially under my guardianship and would be residing here with Kaname and me until he comes of age." With that said, Zero patted Leonard gently on the head signaling for the boy to introduce himself to the group gathered around for tonight's dinner.

Leonard froze for a second before he started to introduce himself in a rush, averting his eyes from the various gazes he was receiving and went back to his task of eating in silence. His introduction was short and clipped, with only his name being uttered from his lips.

The rest of the dinner, Leonard kept his ears open as he listened to the tale related by his cousin to these new people he had just met in silence. He heard someone questioning his cousin on how they never knew of his father's existence, and why he had been residing in the UK and not in Japan itself.

"Frankly speaking, I had no idea of my uncle existence until last night either. Apparently, that uncle of mine choose to lead a different lifestyle altogether by breaking away from the family." Zero said with a shrug, while Yuuki asked.

"What do you mean by a different lifestyle?"

"You know how my family lineage consists of mostly hunters?" Zero prompted, and upon Yuuki's nod in response…he continues on. "This particular uncle of mine opted to be a bank manager in UK after completing his studies over at Newcastle. He ended up marrying an English woman and settled down over there, so Leonard practically grew up in a normal human's environment. Vampires and hunters were apparently the very last thing on his mind until three days ago, when my 'not so dead' grandfather pops into his life."

If any of the night-class members detected the underlying sarcasm in Zero's last sentence of his speech, they did not show it. In fact, they opted to disregard the notion of inquiring on the issue further and moved on to the reason behind Leonard's parents' demise.

"I see…so how his parents' died?" Yuuki asked next, causing the ten year old to fix his eyes onto the floor and avoid looking at anyone in the room.

"…Car incident, both of his parents' perished instantly on impact." Zero's response was clipped, and hoping that Yuuki would drop her questions already. However, his silent plea was not answered as Yuuki's next query was to ask how did Zero ended up with Leonard in his custody.

"He was almost placed in an orphanage until Mamoru came into the picture. Of course, that cunning old man filed for the guardianship papers using my name and then bringing him over to wait at my doorsteps while he disappeared off the planet realm, again." Zero responded, the last part of his words coming out through gritted teeth showing his utmost displeasure.

"Okay…so what's the plan now?" Yuuki prompted, her eyes flicking towards the boy before landing onto her silver-haired friend.

"Well, I'm still debating on where to send him for schooling. Cross Academy only takes in High school students for the time-being, so I'm thinking of sending him into Fujiwara Gakuen. However, I do not wish to force him into it so I'm looking up some other alternatives and then let him choose for himself." Zero eventually said, before sending his cousin off for a shower while he moved on to touch on the other aspects that come in tow with his decision to keep his cousin in the same house as Kaname and him.

After some discussion, it was Ichijo Takuma who brought up one of the benefits of having Leonard residing under the same roof as Kaname and Zero.

"Let's look at it this way, shall we? Leonard is a human, and by taking him in under the roof…it could jolly well strengthen the relationship between vampires and the humans. Isn't it? That's what the whole co-existence deal was to begin with, right?" Ichijo Takuma commented with rekindled spirits of excitement sparkling behind his brightly lit green eyes.

Ever since his taking over of the family business, Ichijo Takuma was no longer that cheerful as before. It was true that that smile of his never left his features, but it just wasn't the same as compared to before. The responsibility of being a managing director for the Ichijo business had matured him a great deal, and while that is a good thing sometimes they just missed seeing the old Ichijo Takuma that always seem so carefree and jovial.

"You know, Ichijo did make a valid point… Kaname-sama could very well be the role model for the rest of the vampires to follow. A pureblood willingly taking up a human ward with no ulterior motives lurking underneath the facade, it would paint us in a positive image in front of the hunters." Aidou Hanabusa pointed out next.

"Indeed… but now let's move on, shall we? The anniversary mark for the newly formed vampire council is coming up next on the agenda, what do you people think we should do this year?" Kaname questioned, the tradition was for the council to host a party and invite all the influential members of the night society around to gather and mingle with one another. The pureblood heir was thinking of making some minor changes to the plans this year.

"Now this is a tricky issue to tackle, what exactly do you have in mind to do…Kaname?" Ichijo Takuma, being the grandson of the ex-president of the vampire council queried.

"I can't change too much of the tradition, but I was thinking of doing something slightly different this year." Kaname conceded.

"How about shifting the celebration out from the council building and move into public? Let's make this year's theme the 'Co-existence', shall we? Other than inviting the influential aristocrats and purebloods, let's extend out the invitation to respectable hunters and wealthy businessmen from the human's society this year, shall we?" Ichijo Takuma suggested.

"Ichijo, I know you want to make your dead grandfather 'roll in his grave' but are you trying to give every vampire working in the council a heart attack? I agree with the shifting to public concept and the inviting of respectable hunters but the part of bringing in humans…I would rather not have it on the list. Under the new governing rules, any events that took place in public with a large numbers of vampires attending would be requiring hunters' association members in presence to oversee the general public's safety.

That policy itself was still acceptable in the vampires' mindset and even if they don't enjoy the idea, they would abide by the rules. However, if you were to involve normal human beings in that situation…I do not think it wise at this point of time. You must understand that not every vampire in our society was really 'welcoming' to the notion of co-existence between the two races of people, and I could say the same for some of the purebloods that still existed in our society." Aidou Hanabusa reasoned in a logical manner.

The next fifteen minutes that follows were spend on the brainstorming of the vampire council's anniversary event, during which period of time Zero had shared his insight to Yuuki on the aspects of what she could do to keep the night-class students under control. Zero advice Yuuki to be more menacing in her aura display, and delivered more severe punishments to the vampires that challenge her authority given the chance.

"More severe punishments like what…?" Yuuki frowned, trying to search her mind for suitable 'punishments' but only to draw a blank and thus ended up seeking Zero's help, again.

"Take a page out of Kaname's book, and have them stand under the sun with pails and buckets of water on their head, hands and feet? Alternatively, you can send them towards the Chairman for the former to boss them around…I'm more than certain that man could have easily came up with a dozen painless methods to torture them mentally." Zero suggested.

Shizuru Hiou rang the bell to her uncle's apartment unit while she stood outside the door waiting patiently for the occupant to answer the door. Despite the fact that she would very much prefer to be paying her uncle a visit during nightfall, she knew that would not be wise as that's when her uncle start working in that pub of his situated in the town where most hunters resided. Besides, she was more than certain that her uncle would not be appreciative to the concept of having his cover blown in public. Hence, she had no choice but to pay her uncle a visit in the broad daylight.

Mamoru Kiryuu had just stumbled out from bed when he heard his doorbell to his apartment unit rang. With a sigh, he trudged towards the front door and pulled the door open without giving it too much a thought. Not a lot of people knew of his residence area, saved the exception of his old friend Kaien Cross, Fujiwara Yumi and also his niece Shizuru Hiou, who is also now a member of the Fujiwara Clan by marriage.

"Kindly make yourself comfortable while I used the facility." Mamoru throws over his shoulders at his niece without batting an eyelid.

"…" Shizuru Hiou sighed, as she closed the door to the apartment and went off to raid her uncle's fridge for some cooling drink to cool her-self off.

Five minutes later found the uncle and niece seated on the leather sofa couch in the living room of Mamoru Kiryuu's flat unit, staring one another in the eyes. Eventually, it was Mamoru Kiryuu that broke the silence between them.

"You know, you can sit down there and stare at me all day long or you could simply come outright with what you wanted to say and do something else more fulfilling for your day."

"…Yumi-sama sends me over; she says she's not going to be cleaning up after your antics this time around. You can either lie low over the next few days and hope that your grandchildren would not find out your hiding place, or you can meet them once and get everything straightens out once and for all." Shizuru Hiou crossed her arms across her chest, as she leaned back into the sofa to observe her uncle's reactions to her words.

"Oh…Is that all?" Mamoru prompted, causing his niece to roll her eyes in response to his words.

"Yes, that will be all. Do think it over and inform me of your decision should you decided to meet up with your grandchildren." Shizuru said in mocking tone of voice, before making a move to stand and leave the place.

Mamoru Kiryuu sighed once Shizura was completely out from his sight, and rubbed the sides of his temples wearily. Of course, he knew what Zero was capable about…with that Kuran heir's support. Mamoru should not be surprised if the elder Kiryuu twin show up on his doorstep one of these days, should he choose to hide away. He had after all, let it slipped to his youngest grandchild of his alias identity used and maintain in Japan. With the kind of resource on hand, Zero would be an idiot not to do some investigation work on his own.

'…Looks like it's time to air out some old laundry…but first things first, let me fill up my stomach with food before anything else was to be done.' Mamoru Kiryuu thought, as he headed into his little kitchen and start whipping up some breakfast for his own consumption.

At the same point of time, Zero was in his own penthouse apartment showing a number of local schools' brochures to his young cousin.

"Now I want you to look through the brochures carefully, and then tell me which school you would prefer to enroll in. While I understand that it was usually the guardian's duty to select the school on the ward's behalf, but I don't want that for you. We belonged under the same generation, despite the vast age difference between us. So I want you to make your own decision and live with it later on in life. Take your time, as the new term would not be commencing until March either way." Zero told Leonard so, as he handed the brochures over to the ten year old to look it over.

"Oh…okay, let me just think it over and get back to you in a few days' time, alright?" Leonard said, reaching for the brochures of the schools with the intention to bring it back into his room and look through them in details.

"Sure, but do let me know your choice by this coming weekend as I would need to make the necessary arrangement with the schools to prepare for your transfer." Zero responded.

With that, it marks the end of the conversation and Leonard retreated back to the privacy of the guest room assigned for his period of stay.

Zero, on the other hand, decided to drop the notion of heading into office this particular morning and pay his dear uncle Satoshi a visit instead. He had some questions pertaining to that 'undead' grandfather of his that needs some answering, and he was hoping that his maternal uncle would have at least some inkling to the reason behind those rumors of his 'grandfather's death'. Not to forget, he had a wedding invitation card to deliver to the former on behalf of his younger twin.

He was not worried about leaving his young cousin alone in the house for a few hours, because he knew Sayori would be dropping by in a while time with this week's groceries. Certainly, the latter would not mind tending to his young cousin for the few hours while he was away in Chiba for today. The hazel brown haired girl still remained as his personal assistant as of current, but she was no longer residing under the same roof as he was since their graduation from Cross Academy.

Wakaba Sayori was now doing a diploma course in 'Nitobe Bunka College' on Early Childhood Education. It was kind of funny to see her studying such a course for her tertiary education when she had no qualms of working in that sector later on in life. Apparently, she had been pestered by her mother to pick a course for her education pathway and had ended up picking a random one by throwing dice. Despite how she claimed that she had no interest in these areas of professionalism, whom was to say the same for the knowledge she acquired during this period of study would not benefits her in the long run?

Date started: 15/2/2013

Date completed: 20/2/2013


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Embracing the Future

Genre: General/Romance/Friendship

Rating: T

Disclaimer: **No, I do not own Vampire Knight. Copyright belongs to Hino Matsuri; I only use the characters for the story. I do, however own the Fujiwara Clan and its' related subordinates family.**

Pairing: Kaname/Zero; mild Ichijo/Risa (OC); Ichiru/Maria; Shiki/Rima.

Summary: (AU) Sequel to 'Visitors from the Future', sets 6 months after last chapter of 'VFTF'. Need I say more? Wants to find out, stay tuned! WIP

Author's Notes: I've decided to stick to weekly updates, since I obviously cannot churn out enough chapters for daily updates. Anyway, you get to see Zero paying his uncle a visit and they will be speaking a little about Kiryuu Mamoru. I will have Sayori in this chapter too, and hopefully, I have enough ideas to weave Shiki and Rima into this chapter…

Chapter 5 – In which Shiki and Rima made an appearances…

Fujiwara Satoshi was in the midst of instructing some students of his, the proper way to hold the bamboo blade used in Kendo when his servant intrude on the lesson informing him of his nephew's arrival to speak with him. Issuing an order for the class to keep on practicing on their own, the man left for the privacy of his Study Room.

"So… care to share what brings you over today?" Fujiwara Satoshi prompted upon his entry into the privacy of his study.

"A few things…" Zero responded, and with that he handed his younger twin's wedding invitation card over to the man.

"Oh… so Ichiru's finally moving on to the next stage eh…?" Fujiwara Satoshi scanned through the contents of the card briefly, filing away the information before putting the card aside and look over at Zero expectantly.

"The issue of invitation card aside, what's your other reason for personally venturing over? I'm more than certain today wasn't one of our regular meeting days for the month, isn't it?" Fujiwara Satoshi commented, jolting the elder Kiryuu out from his thoughts.

"Right…what can you tell me about Mamoru Kiryuu?" Zero started, cutting straight to the point.

"…Why the sudden desire to find out about HIM?" Fujiwara Satoshi's response was one of a skeptical arch of his brows as he turned to observe his nephew with curiosity.

"Considering the fact that he wasn't around by the time I was born to my parents, and I had thought him dead all these while when he suddenly dropped a younger cousin of mine on my doorstep without showing his face two nights ago…I think I had more than enough reason to get down to the bottom of things, isn't it?" Zero huffed, as he crossed his arms in front of his chest leaning his back on the wall eyeing his uncle figure with expectation in a defensive manner.

"… So what exactly was it that you want to know about?" Fujiwara Satoshi sighed as he took his seat behind his work desk, looking at Zero with intent.

"What exactly happened that made people think him dead and why didn't he comes back to his family members after that?" Zero questioned, there was no need to ask for the reason why that man wasn't dead.

After all, it is not an easy feat to kill a pureblood no matter how dysfunctional the genes of that man were. If Rido could survived after being slashed into several body parts by lying low for ten years of sort, it only proved to show that a pureblood could only be killed with their heart crushed into dust or with the aid of an anti-vampire weapon that impaled itself into the fatal point of one…

"…" Fujiwara Satoshi sighed aloud in response, as he started launching into a recount of those events about twenty over years ago which he had heard about from his late parents.

Wakaba Sayori entered the penthouse apartment of Zero Kiryuu using the spare duplicated key she was given when Zero first shifted in here with the Kuran heir. Of course, she never bothered using it unless really deemed necessary. Most of the time, she only came by when Zero was in and usually it was to assist the silver-haired man in handling some issues pertaining to the Fujiwara Clan. Occasionally, it was to help Zero stock up the necessities for the apartment as neither Zero nor the Kuran heir have the time to go shopping for them.

Today, Sayori's reason for being here was more of the latter and also to play 'baby-sitter' for the silver-haired man's ten year old cousin by the name of Leonard Kiryuu.

Upon the hazel brown haired female entry into the apartment unit, the first thing she had noticed was the silence that enveloped the whole place. For a while, she actually thought the apartment to be deserted until she noticed lights emitting from one of the guest-rooms of the unit. That must have been the room allocated for the ten year old boy's usage, Sayori thought.

Pertaining to the issue of Leonard Kiryuu, there wasn't much that Sayori knows. In fact, she was kind of surprise this morning when she received a call from Zero pertaining to the issue of 'baby-sitting'. Okay, perhaps 'chaperoning' was the term opted for usage in Zero's case but still Sayori thought it makes not much difference. Since both cases entails an adult looking after children, not leaving them alone to their own devices unsupervised.

Either way, the only thing Sayori was told about Leonard was that the boy was now Zero's ward to look after until the former reaches the age of adulthood. According to Zero, Leonard was a quiet and mature young boy and basically all Sayori needed to do while being up here was to see to the idea of getting the boy lunch when the times comes around for it.

While Sayori was outside putting away the groceries and necessities items Zero had entrusted her to get from the local supermarket, Leonard was in his assigned room looking over the pamphlets and brochures of local schools in details. The information given in the pamphlets and brochures were mainly on the school's facilities, and also the strengths of the school itself used to attract new enrollments.

There were a couple of schools which caught the ten year old attention, among them included the only boarding school available – Fujiwara Gakuen, seeing as it was situated in Kyoto district. Other schools which had caught Leonard's attention includes the St. Andrew Junior High Affiliated Elementary School, and also Seito Academy. Personal preferences wise, Leonard preferred Seito Academy… primary reason being that the school's near his current residential address and within walking distance.

Having being trained to be independent from young, Leonard had been traveling to and fro from school and home since the age of eight. Back in the UK, Leonard could easily take a public transport to his school and back home without anyone picking him up after school's dismissed. However, here in Japan he gathered he would only need the adults to bring him to and fro in the first week and then he could jolly well traveled alone in future. After all, he had a good sense of directions.

Fujiwara Gakuen, on the other hand, was good for one thing. Since it was a boarding school which only meant he would need to be staying here under the same roof with his cousin and that lover of his cousin during the school holidays. Frankly speaking, that's the only plus points that attracted Leonard's attention because he still wasn't quite comfortable with the duos taking him in just yet. He knows that Zero Kiryuu was his cousin, but still it makes him feel awkward. He had after all grown up without any relatives contact, and out of a sudden he was thrust into the care of his foreign cousin.

The change was still so abrupt that Leonard had no idea how to react to it, not to forget the lover of his cousin was also residing under the same roof. Leonard was not one whom reacted well with abrupt change, the incident resulting in his parents' death still seem kind of surreal to him and that he had yet to get over the shock of it. Before he could really allowed the information to sink in deep, he was pluck out from his comfort zone and carted off onto a plane bringing him to an entirely foreign country under his equally foreign relative's care.

He knew this change was equally awkward to his cousin, and that was why he tried to be mature when dealing with the former. He pushes his own grief aside for the time-being and learns to cooperate with his cousin, not wanting to be deemed as a hassle more than he already was. The dinner last night was kind of overwhelming for Leonard, and to be honest he wasn't quite accustomed to the idea of crowd. His family was small in the UK, and gatherings during festive season had always been cozy for him. Therefore he had totally frozen in shock when his cousin had asked him to do a self-introduction to the guests last night.

Thankfully though, his cousin had detected his uneasiness around the new people and sends him off to take a shower following the end of the dinner session. Following which, he had opted to stay in the privacy and comfort zone of his assigned room for the rest of the evening reading away one of his precious novels that he had taken the liberty to pack from his own home in the UK.

Leonard knew his cousin was going to be out and away for the whole of the afternoon, and had sends someone over to 'look after' him. Hence when he heard the sound of footsteps echoing out there in the hallway, he knew that was his supposed care-taker for the afternoon. Using a bookmark to mark down the page he was reading, Leonard stood and made a move to the living room area.

Sayori had just set up her laptop in order to work on her school project work when she heard someone moving towards the living room, turning around she was met with the sight of a grayish blond haired boy of ten. Allowing a small smile to tug at the corner of her lips, Sayori started.

"Hi, you must be Zero's cousin…Leonard, right?"

"Yes…and you're…?" Leonard Kiryuu cocked his head slightly to the side and inquired.

"I'm your cousin's friend…Wakaba Sayori." The hazel-brown haired girl responded.

"I see…don't mind me and carry on with your work. I just thought it better to come out and greet you so as to avoid being seen as a rude and ill-mannered boy." Leonard said, before moving towards the kitchen for a drink of water.

"Ah…" Sayori made a knowing sound, before she decided to test out her knowledge on child psychology and tried to make small talks with the boy. She started out by inquiring on the boy's well-being and how he was coping with his parents' death to the topic of how settled in was he in Zero's apartment, successfully wriggling out information that she made sure to file away for future usage or to let it in to Zero following the man's return from Chiba.

The conversation lasted for an hour all the way until lunch time comes around, and then she takes the initiative to order pizza for their consumption. After lunch, the conversation topic was moved towards the issue of Leonard's education in Japan and the boy now seeing her as his school's counselor informed her of his dilemma at picking a suitable educational institution to continue his primary school education.

Having been a student of Fujiwara Gakuen all the way until she reaches High school whereby she joined Cross Academy due to Zero, Sayori kindly filled the boy in on the life within Fujiwara Gakuen and she also shared with the boy some information she had chanced upon with her fellow classmates from the other two schools which Leonard was contemplating on enrolling in. By the end of the conversation, both Sayori and Leonard had managed to establish a tentative bond with one another.

By the time Zero was back from his trip to Chiba, Leonard was already back in his room with his novel in hand while Sayori was seen typing away her report for her school project assignment. Upon the sight of Zero's return, Sayori quickly saved her document file before shooting a look at the silver-haired man with the intention to speak with the former in private. Both of them then shifted out into the study and conversed within the privacy of the room.

"Zero, I've taken time to speak with your young cousin… and I believed there is some information that you should knows about him." Sayori wasted no time, and cut straight into her point of this conversation session.

"Right…I knew he was uncomfortable with Yuuki and the night-class members last night, but I didn't know he was that uneasy being surrounded by them. I thought it was his underlying fear of vampires…instead of being in a crowd of strangers." Zero commented after Sayori let it slip to him of Leonard's uneasiness among crowds.

"Quite the opposite actually, vampires fascinate him…I classified it under the influence of those western novels involving vampires… His current favorite series was actually 'Twilight'." Sayori responded with a sardonic look.

"Speaking of which, I had also shared with him my insight on Fujiwara Gakuen… so I think you might want to approach him with the topic later on tonight. Before that though, I suggest for you to speak with Kaname-san about the issue first. Knowing Leonard, he would forgo his own intention to study in another school if he thinks his being around would served to inconvenience both you and Kaname-san…He cares too much of others' opinions on his presence, he sees himself as a burden to the two of you actually." Sayori said before making her move to leave the apartment unit.

"Thank you, I'll make sure to speak with Kaname tonight and then I shall approach Leonard tomorrow morning." Zero nodded his appreciation to his friend cum assistant, before walking the girl out front to the door of the penthouse apartment.

"Alright, Cut!" The director of the filming set called out with a commanding tone of voice, while Shiki Senri and Touya Rima stood unmoving in their position looking out for a signal from the producer of the set.

Both vampires were in the midst of a filming for a TV commercial, usually they does magazines photo-shoot and only recently did they finally decided to take up TV commercials shooting. Both of them were still with the night-class members, residing on campus of the Cross Academy under Yuuki's lead now.

"Okay, that's it for today." The producer announced signaling the end of the filming work, heaving a sigh of relief both vampires headed immediately for the place where their belongings sat. They have a class to get back to.

"Have you spoken to your family members yet?" Rima asked when they were seated in the car on their way back to Cross Academy.

"No…" Shiki responded curtly.

"Not even your mother…?" The vampire female asked.

"…" Shiki Senri said nothing in response to his friend's words; his mother was the only one he cared about in the Shiki's family. However, he had yet to make an attempt to call his mother up knowing for a fact that if he called back, he would be asked to return home to 'sort' things out. His family was a loyal supporter of his now dead father, and his only uncle off his mother's side had been killed during the massacre in the council by his own cousin – Kaname Kuran, previously.

If he were to return home for a visit now, he had no doubt the rest of the family members would start yapping on about getting him onto the newly formed vampire council which he had no intention of being involved in. Those politics and shitty business in the council was not what he intended to do for life, he wanted to break away from the family so much so that if it was not for his mother's sake he would have disowned himself from the family after his father's death by Zero's hand.

"Well… I get that you don't wish to speak of it now, but I do hope that you would make up your mind soon. Ever thought about making your own wish and intention clear to your mother…? You are his son, I'm sure she would listen to you with your father now completely dead and your uncle no longer around to obstruct her views and opinions on the matter." Touya Rima analyzed.

"I know… but just drop the issue for now already, will you?" Shiki responded with a sigh, as he ran his hands through his hair wearily.

"Okay, fine…" Touya Rima rolled her eyes at her friend's words, she personally don't understand why Shiki was so reluctant to speak to his mother about his own wishes in life. Honestly, what could be so difficult about voicing his own opinions across to his mother now that his father and uncle were no longer around to threaten him with the life of his mother?

Back in the Cross Academy, they met up with one Akatsuki Kain whom just returned from his trip to town with the monthly shopping errands. Nodding to one another in silent acknowledgement, the trio started to make their way back to the dormitory building. There is still another hour to go before the evening class's starts for the night-class students.

Life in the Moon Dormitory without one Ichijo Takuma was kind of a bore for Shiki. Honest to speak, Shiki's best friend on campus aside from his partner in modeling career would be the green eyed blond. As for the rest of the night-class members, he does not have much dealing with and henceforth does not know them that well.

Then again, he supposed that was only natural since over the past years he was pretty much distancing himself from the rest of the classmates as he was acting like a mindless puppet free for his family's usage, and ultimately to be used as his now dead father's vessel. A shudder ran down his spines as he recalled the feeling of being trapped in his own mind with his father's soul controlling his every move…the sheer thought of how he had injured his best friend, despite it wasn't him in control of his body then makes him feels guilty all over again.

Shiki Senri is very much like a loner, one could easily go around the dormitory and ask how he's like… over eighty percent of the students could only tells you that he adores chocolate pocky sticks with a passion and that he was working with Touya Rima as a model out in the public. That was all they knew of him. Nobody aside from Touya Rima and Ichijo Takuma knew of his personal preferences in other aspects… and that he had a tendency to day-dream his day away.

Nodding a greeting towards Aidou Hanabusa who had taken over the role of the Vice-President after the departure of Ichijo, Shiki Senri made no move to stop in his steps and continue on his way to his previously shared dormitory room with the green eyed blond. Once within the privacy of the room, Shiki Senri flopped himself down onto the bed unceremoniously.

Touya Rima, on the other hand, lingers on behind to speak with Ruka Souen for a little while and hence got filled in on the latest happenings that surrounded their pureblood prince of the Kuran Clan and the elder Kiryuu twin.

"Rima, are you alright…?" Ruka prompted, after noticing the female model's distraction.

"Yes, I'm fine…I'm just distracted by some thoughts. Go on, what was it that you were saying a while ago?" Rima snapped her conscious mind back to the topic at hand, inwardly making it a mental note to check on Shiki's state in a while time. Let her best friend brood over the issue for another few minutes before she goes barging in and disturb his peace.

Date started: 25/2/2013

Date completed: 26/2/2013

P.S: Sorry for the shorter chapter, but well… time is running out on me. Did not get much ideas yesterday to write about, I'll make the next chapter longer if I can :P


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Embracing the Future

Genre: General/Romance/Friendship

Rating: T

Disclaimer: **No, I do not own Vampire Knight. Copyright belongs to Hino Matsuri; I only use the characters for the story. I do, however own the Fujiwara Clan and its' related subordinates family**.

Pairing: Kaname/Zero; mild Ichijo/Risa (OC); Ichiru/Maria; Shiki/Rima.

Summary: (AU) Sequel to 'Visitors from the Future', sets 6 months after last chapter of 'VFTF'. Need I say more? Wants to find out, stay tuned! WIP

Author's Notes: I've decided to stick to weekly updates, since I obviously cannot churn out enough chapters for daily updates. Okay, so I managed to put a little bit of Shiki and Rima into the end of last chapter…Now in this chapter, you will get a little of KanZe discussion on Leonard's education issue, and also Leonard making up his mind on which school to enroll in. Towards the end of the chapter if possible, I will slot in Touga and Kaien Cross interaction…

Chapter 6 – In which Zero speak with Kaname about Leonard…

A sigh of content escaped the lips of one Kaname Kuran as he felt his lover's wonderful hands slowly massaging the aching tension away from his shoulders. Between his work at the Kuran Incorporation and also the Vampire Council, stresses are bound to mount in him. At times like this, his silver-haired lover would always take the initiative to unwind him after a hard day of work.

"Feeling better now…?" Zero started.

"Most definitely…"Kaname Kuran responded in contentment.

"Good, perhaps you would be more welcoming to the idea of having a discussion with me now." Zero stated flatly.

"Discussion…?" Kaname echoed, a frown marring his features as he tried to comprehend the reason behind the necessity of this particular discussion session with his lover.

"Don't fret, this discussion have nothing to do with my hunting missions or whatsoever. It was pertaining to Leonard's education issue." Zero said, his hands still working on loosening his lover's tensed muscles on the back.

"I see…so what do you have in mind to discuss with me about?" Kaname prompted, his tone of voice used was one of neutrality betraying nothing of his actual thoughts to the issue.

"I want to know how you actually felt about my cousin's presence here with us under the same roof." Zero said in a deadpanned manner, as he eyed his dark-haired lover with unwavering gaze.

"…" For a while, there was silence before the dark-haired pureblood vampire sighed aloud and said. "You want my honest opinion on this?"

"Well duh…why else do you think I am asking you this?" Zero could not help but roll his eyes at his lover's words.

"Honestly speaking, I am not exactly happy with the idea of a third party residing here with us." Kaname took a pause in his speech for some drama feel, before raising a hand up to stop his silver-haired lover from interrupting and continues to speak.

"However, I am willing to accommodate him for your sake. He is, after all, your cousin. I'm not that heartless to cast him out to the streets when he was nothing but a mere kid. Judging from what I've seen of him thus far, if his current behavior is the way he was going to be carrying himself about around us…I gathered I should not be having any troubles from him in the long run. Moreover, Ichijo was right on one thing…his human status could indeed help our clause of promoting co-existence between humans and vampires a great deal."

"…" Zero was silent for a minute while mulling over his lover's words, and then he asked. "Okay… can I safely assume that Leonard's guardianship rights falls entirely on my shoulders?"

"I would believe so, although you could still list me as the emergency contact for his school enrollment application just in case they are unable to reach you at some point of time." Kaname responded.

"Right…now on the subject of his schooling issue, I've told him to pick a school that he's interested by himself. I just thought to check with you whether you would mind seeing him on daily basis, but since you mentioned you would be able to tolerate his presence for now. I certainly hope that you won't regret your own decision in time to come, of course, once he reached to the age of sixteen I would be sending him off to Cross Academy for his High School education. Therefore, until then…you would just have to live with the idea of having him around." Zero smirked, enjoying the dumbfounded look on Kaname's features before heading out in search for his young cousin ward.

Honest to speak, Zero personally was not that accustomed to the idea of playing guardian figure to his cousin still. It was one thing to look after Akira and Subaru when the trio was still hanging around, because they were his own children. For Akane, while he didn't really takes on the parenting role then… the girl was practically capable to take care of herself seeing as she was a teenager just like he was. His cousin though, was entirely different compared to the trio…because he was too old to be considered a kid but also too young to be consider a teen. Preteen, that was the stage where his cousin was standing currently.

Handling a preteen was different, and it was even more challenging when the said preteen was ranked equally with him on the family hierarchy chart. Unlike the age difference between Ichijo Takuma and his future adopted ward, Akane…between him and his young cousin, there was only a difference of twelve years in age. He finds it extremely hard to treat his young cousin as his kid, because the sheer concept itself was hard to stomach. Zero dared not even contemplate about how he was going to deal with his young cousin by the time the latter hits the adolescents years, the sheer notion of the necessity to give his cousin the talk about 'birds and the bees' makes him cringe inwardly with dread.

The ten year old Leonard Kiryuu was in the midst of reading one of the books in 'The Last Vampire' series written by one Christopher Pike, when he felt the presence of someone else in the same area as he was. Snapping wide alerting eyes towards the doorway, the cousins' duo were equally surprised by the situation.

"Erm…is anything the matter?" Leonard eventually took it upon himself to break the silence between them.

"Well…I was just going to check if you had your decision made pertaining to your schooling issue." Zero responded, calmly as he addressed his young cousin. Deciding to cast aside the interest in his cousin's alert senses for the time being…

"Oh…pertaining to that issue, I have a question for you." Leonard hurried to stick a bookmark in between the pages he was previously reading through, and placed the book aside so as to look up at his cousin with his whole attention.

"Alright, shoot then…" Zero leaned casually against the wall next to the doorway and indicated for the boy to speak his mind.

"When you mentioned for me to pick the school of my choice, do you mean that I would get what I choose or you would merely take my option picked out into consideration and that the final decision lays with you?" Leonard questioned his tone serious.

"I meant what I said, you can pick the school for yourself and I'm not going to interfere with it. However, do note that once you made your choice…you are not allowed to change your mind again. You reap what you sow…understands?" Zero directed his words towards his cousin, his expression stoic and his tone firm.

Leonard nodded in response to his guardian's words, before responding. "In that case, I picked Seito Academy."

"Are you absolutely certain?" Zero quirked an eyebrow up in question, giving his cousin one last chance to change the mind but it seems like the ten year old had his mind dead set upon the choice made.

"Alright then, I'll get down to the task of making the arrangement and preparing for your enrollment as soon as possible. Once the arrangements are finalized, I'll be bringing you out to get your school supplies." Zero told his cousin, before biding the boy good-night and left the room for the study where he still needs to look over some office documents before his going in tomorrow for work.

Yagari Touga entered the residential estate of his old-time friend on the grounds of Cross Academy upon his return from another overseas mission trip. He had with him some good old wine for his friend as souvenir; there are times he wished he could strangle Kaien Cross. Trust the former to always request for local souvenirs whenever he went for overseas hunting mission, does he looks like the type who would enjoy shopping while on a hunting job?

Kaien Cross was humming a jovial tune under his breath when his veteran hunter friend, Yagari Touga, entered his humble abode.

"Ah…Touga, you came just at the right time. My dear Yuuki-chan had just brought me some first class sushi takeout from the Sakura Japanese Cuisine Restaurant. Would you like to join me for a late supper?" The loony Chairman of Cross Academy inquired.

"…No, I just came by to drop your souvenir." The veteran hunter replied in a gruff-like manner.

"Oh…so you got those wines on the list I gave you already? Wonderful, now there's no need to fear about the possibility of not having an appropriate wedding gift for Ichiru and Maria-chan…" The Chairman gushes out as he nodded in satisfaction upon inspecting the 'souvenirs'.

Yagari Touga felt his eyebrow twitching once then twice, annoyance clearly visible on his features as the veteran hunter glance at his loony friend from the corner of his eyes.

"Kaien, I must say that you really do have guts." Eventually, he gritted out with irritation.

"…I do…?" The ex-hunter and current Chairman of Cross Academy blinked in bewilderment, apparently he had yet to catch on to his friend's meaning behind those words.

With eyebrow twitching dangerously, Yagari Touga threw his friend a look of venom before spelling things out clearly to the loony Chairman that he was no courier guy. And that the next time round, the Chairman had better not purposely sends him on a detour trip while on a hunting job just to pick up an order previously placed on credit terms. Instead, the Chairman should pay for the items ordered and get the store-owners to arrange for delivery on their terms rather than getting him to pick the items up while in the country.

"Aww…but Touga…the courier fees are way too high, it's cheaper when one collected the items personally over their counter." The Chairman wailed in protests.

"Then you jolly well go and pick up the items yourself, instead of getting me to do it!" The veteran hunter growled at his lunatic friend with unbidden annoyance.

"But…you are in the country, why not might as well do me a favor?" Kaien Cross reasoned, sticking out his bottom lip in a pitiful pouting manner making him look incredibly childish.

"You know what…? I better get out of here before I lose it completely and shoot you to oblivion." Yagari Touga announced in a huff, and promptly turned on his heels with the intention to stalk out of the place.

Realizing that his friend was indeed serious about the notion of leaving, Kaien Cross hurried to call the former back.

"Now, wait a minute…Touga. Zero called the other day and asked if you are back from the trip yet, he said he had something to speak to you about." The loony Chairman hurried to call after his friend, before the veteran hunter was completely out of earshot range.

There was a slight pause in the veteran hunter's steps, before the man continues on his way again. Still, the slight pause in mid-steps had indicated to Kaien Cross that his friend had heard his words but merely didn't felt compelled to stay around at his place.

"Oh well…at least the message had been relayed." The Chairman shrugged while murmuring to himself, before shifting his attention back to the sushi take-out his adopted daughter, Yuuki had sent over.

"Mother dearest, how many times must I tell you that I have no time to meet up with those respectable ladies that you are claiming a necessity for me to meet?" Aidou Hanabusa fought against the urge to yell into his mobile phone, out of nothing but sheer respect for his mother.

Beside him, his cousin, Akatsuki Kain could be seen shooting the blue eyed blond pitying looks. The fire wielding vampire thanked his lucky stars that his mother was not exactly fond of the idea of arranged marriages, and hence he was entitled to the freedom of picking his own bride unlike his cousin who was constantly being subjected to match-making sessions arranged by the lady of the Aidou Clan.

"Mother, I'll speak with you another time…Yuuki-sama is calling for a meeting between the night-class members to discuss the impending school festival programs." Aidou Hanabusa finally said in a tone of finality before hanging up the call.

"Honestly, Aidou-sempai… you can't keep on using me as an excuse to get your way out of a potential match-making session. You know?" Yuuki Kuran, the pureblood princess of the Kuran Clan commented wryly as she observed her 'mentor' figure in the night-society from the corner of her eyes.

"I know…but frankly speaking, sometimes it drives me insane just by speaking with her. I personally don't get it…why is she so fond of the idea on playing match-maker?" Aidou Hanabusa questioned aloud to no one in particular, seeing as this was a question that neither of them had an answer to.

"So…let's go back to the topic at hand, shall we?" Akatsuki Kain started, drawing the group's attention back to the initial conversational topic before they were rudely disrupted by his cousin's phone call from home.

They had been in the midst of a discussion pertaining to how the night-class is going to be participating in the impending school's founding anniversary carnival. The first year after the revision of the school's rules and regulations, the night-class was involved in a joint-project with the school's astronomy club for a star gazing session. The second year, their resident pureblood leader, Kaname Kuran, had suggested for an inter-class chess competition. Last year, it was a daring approach…a 'one-day Moon Dormitory Tour' was being organized.

This year though…there was a debate between setting up butler cafe, and transforming one of the classrooms in the main academic block into a ghost house.

"Right, so the common class vampires are opting for the ghost house option while the aristocrats are leaning towards the cafe thing. What do you reckon we should be doing?" Yuuki prompted, both options seem rather troublesome to her but they were equally tempting for her.

"What are the risks of having our covers being blown by either option?" Akatsuki questioned, he would not put it past the common class to slip up in front of the general student body because there has been cases reported in prior.

"Chances are equally high, I believed… The first option had a possibility of high human traffic rendering it hard for the common class to control their blood lust. The second option though… there is a chance that the common class thought it a hassle to pretend as 'ghosts' instead opted to showcase their natural talent instead." Aidou Hanabusa pointed out matter-of-factly.

"Then we will just need to organize it in a way that there are chaperon figures around to keep things under control." Yuuki Kuran responded.

"Who do you have in mind for the chaperon figures then, Yuuki-sama?" Aidou Hanabusa asked.

"I guess…I'll just have to get in Zero to help us out on this. His image of being a terror to the whole student body weren't just for show; the legacy remains even now after he graduated." Yuuki grinned, the common class vampires were wary of his presence and the day-class students dared not cross him unnecessarily.

"Indeed…" The aristocrats members involved in the meeting shared a common look among them, before commenting dryly in unison.

"Good, so we have an agreement then?" Yuuki glances about the room and upon receiving several nods in response, Yuuki decided to go for option A – the butler cafe as it would be easier to supervise under that arrangement and settings.

"Fantastic, now I shall go and call Zero up and inform him of the plans so as to prevent him from planning anything else on the day itself." Yuuki said, dismissing the members in the room and making her way towards the direction where the cordless phone of the Moon Dormitory Building was located.

Zero Kiryuu was practically swamped with calls when his dark-haired lover returned from work that very evening. It was kind of comical to witness how busy the silver-haired man was between putting calls on hold and attending to mobile calls at the same time. The sight was so amusing that Kaname Kuran had stood in the doorway of the study room with a stupid grin visible on his lips, causing the silver-haired hunter to glare at him pointedly.

"Enjoying the show, are you?" Zero gritted out in frustration, after all the calls had been attended to and dealt with.

"Well…you had to admit it was quite a show, I think this is the first time ever I had seen you being caught in a swamp of calls." Kaname Kuran commented wryly while Zero snorted rudely.

"So…what's up?" The Kuran heir questioned, upon catching sight of the organizer of his lover being out on the table and the former was now scribbling information down onto it.

"Nothing except that I'm entrusted with the task of playing chaperon to Cross Academy's carnival taking place next weekend, the night class are hosting a butler cafe…and I'm asked to supervise the process."

"Okay…so what's the reason for the sudden rush of calls all looking for you then?" Kaname could not help but asked.

"Nothing…my master was back in town after his latest hunting trip, he was calling me up to check on the reason behind my intention to speak with him. I was half-way through with my conversation with him, when the administrative staff of Seito Academy called in requesting me to bring Leonard down for the entrance examination this coming Wednesday morning. And then…Yuuki called over to inform me of the carnival issue and her request for me to play chaperon during then. Also, I received a call from Fujiwara Yumi informing me that my grandfather had been found, and that a meeting had been scheduled between us over at the main house of the Fujiwara Clan in three days' time." Zero responded, as he flipped through his schedule and jotted down the relevant details pertaining to his upcoming week's schedule.

"Ah…I see." The pureblood prince of the Kuran Clan mused aloud, leaning over his silver-haired lover's shoulders to take a peek at the schedule and at the same time taking in his lover's lavender shampoo scent.

"Kaname…I'm not going to indulge you here in the study. I do not wish to get my paper work dirty." Zero muttered aloud, pushing his lover back in order to prevent himself the fate of being ravished atop of the study room work desk again.

"Zero…I missed you." Kaname's whisper was husky, and it sends shivers down a certain silver-haired hunter's spine.

Gritting his teeth in annoyance, Zero steeled him-self and pushed his lover back with a hot glare and said. "For the last time I am warning you, Kuran…get the hell out from here before I blasted you out of here."

"Zero…"

"Two choices, either you get out of here now and hop into the shower…I might choose to indulge you tonight for a round or two… or you can take me here and then jolly well forget about getting any for the next one week to come." Zero throws out at the horny pureblood in a tone that meant business.

"…Alright, fine…but I'll be holding you to your words." Kaname muttered aloud, before removing himself off his lover but not before stealing a kiss from the irate silver-haired man.

The pureblood was out of the study room just in time to prevent being hit on the back of the head by a tape dispenser which Zero had managed to grab and thrown towards him. A rich and hearty laughter was Zero's only response to the badly aimed attack.

"…" Ten year old Leonard Kiryuu wisely opted to maintain his silence as he inched past the study room and made a beeline for his assigned room for safety reasons.

Date started: 6/3/2013

Date completed: 7/3/2013

P.S: The lack of reviews over the last two chapters was really kind of demoralizing… but either way, I sure hope that this particular chapter of KanZe moments could make up for the boredom over the last two chapters XD I've got request asking me to update twice a week, I can try but there's no guarantee since my muses activity rate these days are quite low and sometimes I can't get half a chapter done in a day… but I'll see what I can do, okay?

Another thing is that, I work in the afternoon till late evening on weekdays, specifically Tuesday to Friday. Saturday and Sunday, I'm working from 9am to 5pm…Monday while is my off-day from work, I got night classes from 7pm to 10pm. I can't really write my fics during work time as muses don't work with me then, and I always ended up having to trash everything written during that period of time. Evening hours on weekend are kind of slow on authoring fic, so I usually work on my Ghost Hunt series which I already got the stages and details planned out only need to put them into words. I'll try from now on to see if I can finish up my Slam Dunk chapter on Monday morning, then set off to work on ETF after-which. It would help a great deal if you people throws me some ideas or some scenarios that you people wanted to see in here, I'll work something to fit it in :D


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Embracing the Future

Genre: General/Romance/Friendship

Rating: T

Disclaimer: **No, I do not own Vampire Knight. Copyright belongs to Hino Matsuri; I only use the characters for the story. I do, however own the Fujiwara Clan and its' related subordinates family**.

Pairing: Kaname/Zero; mild Ichijo/Risa (OC); Ichiru/Maria; Shiki/Rima.

Summary: (AU) Sequel to 'Visitors from the Future', sets 3 years after last chapter of 'VFTF'. Need I say more? Wants to find out, stay tuned! WIP

Author's Notes: In this chapter, you get to see Leonard visiting the Fujiwara estate with Zero and also his thoughts on his new schooling life.

Chapter 7 – Before the Carnival…

On Wednesday afternoon, after the end of Leonard's entrance examination for the school enrollment procedure…the cousin duos set off immediately for the Fujiwara estate situated in Kyoto. They had a private meeting with their grandfather taking place in the privacy of the estate ground that very evening.

"Where are we going?" Ten year old Leonard Kiryuu asked, out of curiosity.

Ever since his arrival at his cousin's doorstep some weeks ago, the boy had been literally home bound and his area of movements were limited to the apartment itself and the cafeteria situated just directly across the apartment building. Today was the first day Leonard was actually going to actually venture out and explores the neighborhood. Granted, Seito Academy was situated just a few roads down the street within 1.5 kilometer radius of the apartment building, but it was far enough to satisfy the ten year old boy for the time being.

Following the end of the entrance examination, the boy had thought his outdoor trip for the day had come to an end. Therefore, he was genuinely surprised to find his cousin bringing him towards the nearest subway train station instead of heading back home.

"We are going to visit someone in Kyoto." That was all Zero had said, before tugging Leonard to the ticketing booth to purchase the ticket needed for the trip.

Taking the subway train of Japan was a first for Leonard, and so it was no wonder for the boy to compare with his experience back in the UK. The train was packed like sardines; it was so crowded that the air was stifling in there. The ten year old boy suddenly felt himself missing UK, or at the very least he missed the train rides back in that country which he had grown up in literally. Since the trains in UK were never this crowded and dreadful for the boy to endure.

Resisting the urge to curse under his breath, Leonard shifted closer to his cousin so he doesn't ended up being squashed by a large size overweight man who seem to have it in mind to flatten him.

Zero observed his little cousin from the corner of his eyes, inwardly making a note of his cousin's reluctance to be trapped in a crowded place. There was no need to inquire, because the silver-haired man had seen how the frown had etched on his cousin's face ever since the train started to get crowded after their entry into the cabin. The frown on his cousin's face turns into one of disgusts when the oversize man inched in closer to the boy, it took all of Leonard's good upbringing culture to refrain from pinching his nose at the horrible stench given off by the man's body.

"Leonard, be ready to squeeze yourself out from here. One more stops before we get off the train now." Zero started, giving his cousin a heads up first.

"Good." Leonard responded tightly, still trying to refrain from gagging upon the smell of that oversize man's body odor.

Once the train arrived at the Kyoto's station, the cousins' duo wasted no time in getting off the train. Leonard took several minutes to gather himself up at the platform, breathing in deeply to satisfy his lungs with the feel of fresh air.

"You don't like being in crowds, do you?" Zero asked, after his cousin regains bearings.

"Well…yeah, they are noisy for one and I prefer silence so…" Leonard shrugged his response in a nonchalant manner.

"I see…come on then, let's hurry up and get a move on." Zero instructed, beckoning for the boy to follow his lead.

Leonard followed Zero dutifully and obediently without a fuss, he was curious to see where exactly they were going after all. After taking several turns around the corner of the road, they finally arrived in front of a landed property with a typical Japanese traditional outlook appearance.

"Welcome, Zero-sama…please follows me." A traditionally dressed female around the age of mid-thirties approached them and said.

Zero said nothing but nodded while Leonard followed behind in curiosity. They were then lead to a cozy size room with a square size table situated in the center of the room and cushions placed around it. The walls of the room was painted white and lined with pictures of nature, such as waterfalls, mountains and trees.

"Leonard, do sit down and wait." Zero told the boy, only to receive a look of bewilderment from his cousin.

It took Zero a full minute to realize that Leonard has probably never been told of the traditional Japan culture and hence had no idea where to sit under this circumstance.

"Leonard, the cushions placed around the table is where you should be seated. Generally speaking, the Japanese would kneel on these cushions. However, seeing as you are not being raised in the Japanese traditional manner…sitting down cross-legged would do." Zero explained, and the boy hurried to comply.

"Okay, so where are we now?" Leonard asked, after having taking the surrounding in and learning a few things about the Japanese culture.

"We are at the Fujiwara estate; it's the vampire branch of the family's territory. The history behind it is kind of complicated, and since you aren't a hunter…you shouldn't bother yourself with it. All you need to know is that they are part of my late mother's family relations will do." Zero said.

"Oh…okay, so what are we going to be doing here?" Leonard asked next.

"We are waiting for our grandfather dearest to show himself." Zero responded with dry sarcasm lacing the tone of his voice.

There was no need to wait long, no later than five minutes following the end of Zero's statement the shoji door leading to the room was slide open again. This time around, it was Kiryuu Mamoru whom entered the room.

Mamoru Kiryuu was surprised to see that only Zero and Leonard were here for the meeting, for he thought Ichiru would be here too.

"If you are expecting Ichiru to be around, don't bother. He simply cannot be bothered by your existence, he's quite busy recently too…with his impending marriage and all." Zero started, cutting direct to the point as beating around the bush was never his thing to do.

"I see…" Mamoru Kiryuu responded neutrally, directing a small smile towards the ten year old Leonard's way before looking up at Zero, again.

"So…I heard from Yumi that you were quite adamant on the idea of meeting me at least once, why?"

"…" Zero was silent, he may have demanded for a meeting with his grandfather before but now as the former sat in front of him…he found himself to be at a loss of speech. Eventually, he decided on demanding an explanation out from the man's decision to keep away from the family after that 'mission gone wrong' twenty over years ago.

Mamoru Kiryuu let out sigh, before launching into his tale of that particular mission twenty years ago that eventually resulted in his 'disappearance' act. He explained that the tension between vampires and hunters were rather tensed then, and his situation were unlike Zero's own predicament. At least, with Zero's case the association had knew of the boy being turned in a misfortunate event from the Kiryuu family's demise. Henceforth, even when Zero was send on a 'suicide' mission and still emerging out alive, there would be no questions being raised.

However, his situation was of the complete opposite. Nobody in the association had known of his family relations to the Hiou, he had made sure to have his origins covered. The hunters only know him as Kiryuu Mamoru, a rising star in the hunter's society. His lack of vampire traits such as fangs and nocturnal lifestyle was enough to confuse them, despite his aura being slightly strange for a hunter. He was sort of an in-between, and if it was just him then it should be tolerable. That however had all changes when he settled down with a family of his own, while his wife was no hunter but it doesn't change the fact that his wife originated from a family lineage that is close to the Fujiwara family.

This little detail unsettled the association then, but there was nothing they could have done about it. It was not until that his eldest son, Kiryuu Kaoru had went on the first hunting mission and came out unharmed that the association started to feel threaten by the Kiryuu clan capabilities. And so they started assigning Mamoru Kiryuu more and more of those dangerous missions, hoping for the hunter to perish in one of those missions' trips. Eventually, he ended up being fatally wounded in one and because his fellow team members had thought it pointless to save him from site, they had left him stranded there on the battleground to his own device. That, he was glad of because if it were not for their thought of leaving him out there to fend for himself he might not have survived it through.

"Then why did you not return home after you recovered?" Zero voiced out next.

Mamoru Kiryuu snorted, before responding. "Return and surrender? I think not…you may not be aware of it then but the Kiryuu Clan had always been under the association scrutiny. Your mother's a smart one, but I can't say the same as your father. Your uncle though was another matter entirely, he knew if he were to pick up any hunting skills he would be under the association's thumb to rule. Therefore, he rather opted for staying out of the circle entirely."

"…Right…so where have you been all these while?"

"Ever heard of the term 'Hidden in plain sight'? That's what I've been doing over the past twenty years, since my recovery from the near fatal wound of that mission." Mamoru Kiryuu said.

The meeting with Mamoru Kiryuu had managed to address the majority of Zero's questions, but there were still a couple of things that he wasn't being told. Then again, he could hardly care less…since Kuran Rido was already dead now; he didn't see any point in getting down to the bottom of things.

The next two days passes by with Zero busy getting Leonard's school supplies from the school bookshop, and getting the boy's new uniform ready. Friday is the first day of Leonard's official schooling day, and Zero had taken a half day leave from office to bring the boy to school personally. Before he knew it, weekends was approaching and a quick check of his schedule had him informed that he was required at Cross Academy for the carnival on this particular weekend.

The carnival event for Cross Academy starts at 10am in the morning, being the chaperon person he needs to be there by 9.30am so to ensure that everything progressed on smoothly. Seeing as there's quite a distance from his current residence area and Cross Academy, he needs to wake at 5am in the morning. Luckily for him, staying up the night and forgoing the idea of sleep was nothing new for him anymore. The experience from his days of being a school guardian in Cross Academy had served him well.

His young cousin had officially started schooling a day ago, and was currently still adjusting to the new school environment. Judging from the conversation he had had with the boy yesterday evening following his return from the office, the boy was settling in quite fine. His classmates were mostly well-behaved and had proper upbringing background; they were not as rowdy as Leonard had initially anticipated them to be. Granted, there have been a couple of kids in his class that were too 'friendly' for his liking… Leonard had taken it all in stride. Overall to say, the boy's first day at school had gone well and there was nothing much to be worrying about.

Currently, the boy was still blissfully sleeping away while his lover, Kaname was off in the office of Kuran Incorporation for a morning meeting. Unwilling to wake his cousin up from the well deserved sleep, Zero decided to call up Wakaba Sayori informing the girl to come over and pick the boy up later on at noon and then meeting up with him in Cross Academy, it-self. He was initially contemplating on getting Sayori in earlier to watch his cousin, but after Leonard's relentless attempt at claiming to say that he required no baby-sitter as he was quite independent and capable to handle himself within the apartment just fine…he decided to drop the notion and trust his cousin on this issue for now.

By the time the clock struck 6am in the morning, Zero was more or less ready to leave for Cross Academy. Knowing that it would be faster for him to reach the destination area by taking a train instead of calling in the chauffeur to drive him over, the silver-haired man grabbed his apartment keys and his wallet from the table and left immediately after. He had left a note together with the ready-made breakfast dish which he had stored in the kitchen atop of the counter where the microwave oven was seated for his young cousin.

The boy was more than competent to handle the kitchen appliances, having assisted him in the dinner preparation before. Therefore, he had no need to fear the boy exploding his kitchen like what Kaname had done several months before.

The whole journey from his apartment in Shibuya Tokyo, to reach Cross Academy by the transportation of Subway Train took him about two and a half hours. Following which, he transferred to a cab that takes him straight to the school's gate before walking the rest of the path himself. Zero Kiryuu arrived at the Moon Dormitory at exactly 9am on the dot, and came face to face with a certain blue eyed blond by the name of Aidou Hanabusa.

"Kiryuu…"

"Aidou…"

The duos greeted one another civilly; it was far too early for them to start an argument or sort. The blue eyed blond seems kind of lethargic; then again it was to be expected since the blond was never a 'morning' person. Zero was more than willing to bet, if it wasn't for the fact that the responsibility of being the Vice-President for the Moon Dormitory now lays upon the shoulders of Aidou, the blue eyed aristocrat member would rather be lazing around in his room sleeping away instead of being up and about.

"Right, go on in then…Yuuki-sama is expecting you." Aidou Hanabusa said, stifling a yawn as he made his way across the lawn towards the direction of the Chairman's residence area. He had some administration documents to be submitted to the loony Chairman that he had neglected to pass on, the day before when the former paid the Moon Dormitory a visit.

Zero nodded in acknowledgement to the blond words before striding into the Moon Dormitory building, it has been a couple of weeks since he was last seen around here. The last time he was here, it was for a Christmas gathering session. Now it was the mid of January already, and in another two weeks time…Ichiru, his twin would be married and shifted out from this building as well.

With a shake of head to rid his mind of such sentimental thoughts, Zero focused his concentration on locating a certain pureblood princess who is said to be waiting for him somewhere within the building.

Yuuki Kuran was in the dormitory lounge situated on the second storey of the building briefing the night class members when Zero popped in. Almost immediately, the common class vampires of the night class who seemed rather bored previously straighten themselves up in a flash of light. Once Yuuki announced that Zero Kiryuu would be chaperoning them for today's event, their demeanor changed into one of seriousness.

Yuuki sighed inwardly at the night-class members' behavior, months have come and gone by and yet she was still having problem controlling the night-class members. Would there ever be a day whereby the members' would abide by her rules without her bringing in either her beloved brother or Zero? Yuuki could not help but wonder…

"Right, I'll keep an eye out on them first. Talk to you later." Zero told the chocolate-haired girl before taking his leave from the lounge, tailing the group of vampires walking ahead from behind.

Kaname Kuran kept his impatience in check, masking them up behind his indifference demeanor. Inside, he was beyond irritated. There was a school carnival going on in Cross Academy whereby his lover had been requested to play chaperon to the night-class members, he had told the former that he would be dropping by later on in the day following the end of his meeting with a client of his. It was now approaching noon, and yet the client was still droning on and on about some irrelevant topics and it was starting to gets on his nerves now.

"Mr. Conner, I would appreciate it if you could simply cut the chase and go straight to the point of this meeting and tell me directly to the face of what it is that you required from me, or rather expected of my Company to provide for you. I'm not sure about you, but I do have a schedule to stick to." Kaname finally had enough of the man's droning interjected sharply.

"Right…what I meant to say here is that, the price you are quoting us is a little on the steep side. We would very much appreciate it if you could lower the quotation amount slightly so that it would not over-shoot our budget plan for this project." Mr. Conner, the client spoke up then.

"…I'm afraid this is something that I cannot decide right away, although I'm the boss here…I still need to take in my subordinates judgment into consideration. Tell you what; I'll get my staff to call you up in a few days' time to inform you of the decision after another discussion between me and my staffs on this issue. For now, I'm afraid I've got to make a move first. Sandra will show you the way out." Kaname said, signaling for his company's receptionist to walk the client to the door.

"Seiren, I'll leave you in charge to brief them on the client's expectations. I'm making a move first." Kaname instructed, grabbing his coat and was out of his office door in no time with the intention to head directly to the Cross Academy in order to locate his beloved silver-haired hunter.

Meanwhile, ten year old Leonard Kiryuu woke in the penthouse apartment to find no one but a note accompanied by a breakfast dish waiting for him in the kitchen. The note merely informed him that Wakaba Sayori would be dropping by after lunch hours to pick him up, bringing him over to Cross Academy for the school's carnival.

With a shrug, Leonard dumped the note in the trash-bin of the kitchen before putting the plate of breakfast dish into the microwave to reheat. In the meantime, he headed for the common bathroom and went through his morning routine and took a quick shower. Once accomplished, he settled onto the dining table with the warm breakfast dish in hand and started devouring the food.

Being left alone in the penthouse apartment doesn't really bother him much, and in fact he was quite grateful that his cousin had taken his words for it and refrains from getting in a caretaker to watch him specially. Although, he knew his cousin meant well with that notion but it stills makes him feel like a 'baby' when being watched and besides, he was already used to being alone in the house back in the UK and so it makes him uneasy to have an adult watching him, getting things ready for him when he could handle those things himself.

A quick glance at the clock informed the boy that he still had about thirty minutes to spare before Wakaba Sayori would be popping by and fetch him to wherever his cousin was.

"I guess I'd better start packing some things with me to keep myself occupy on the trip to Cross Academy then." Leonard muttered under his breath to no one in particular, before heading for his assigned room and starts to pack his half-read novel in a backpack together with his wallet. For a while, he wondered if he should pack his school textbook along but eventually decided to forgo the idea. The last thing he needs was for his cousin to find out about his weakness in Japanese language, since that was by far the native tongues of most people residing in Japan.

Leonard may have no problem with vocalizing the language, but he was extremely bad at writing it. The hiragana, katakana and kanji form of the Japanese languages still confuses him at most if not all of the time. Sometimes, he simply do not understand why schools in Japan still taught the majority of the subjects in Japanese languages when it should be obvious that English was the commonly used language in the lives of the working adults. Aren't they aware that the current teaching methods used would only served to cause students more problems and troubles once they reached to their tertiary schooling level whereby the lessons were taught in English, instead of their native tongues of Japanese?

The sheer memory of the English class from the day before came flooding to the front of Leonard's mind caused the ten years old to cringe in response…the pronunciation of English terms and words by the English teacher of his class was far too horrible for Leonard to stomach. It took all his efforts to refrain himself from face-planting himself whenever he heard his teacher utter an English word. And then the content of the English textbook, it was so juvenile that Leonard had already covered its content when he was just six years old back in the UK.

'Oh well…on a brighter side, acing the English paper would be easy enough.' The boy thought, since his weakness now obviously lies in the language of Japanese.

The chiming of the doorbell informed the boy that Wakaba Sayori had reached, and the boy hurried to stuff his books into the backpack before heading out front to answer the door.

Date started: 12/3/2013

Date completed: 14/3/2013

P.S: The carnival will comes in the next chapter, the language thing just sprang to mind when I realized how horrible Japanese people grasp of the language was. A customer of mine sounded so unsure of the questions when she asks in English to me a few days ago… people like Kaname should have no problem with the language of English, same to go for night class members in general maybe except Yuuki. That's all for now, see you next chapter XD


End file.
